Undercurrents
by The Cubist
Summary: Sometimes, the hidden currents, the ones that stream by below, far out of sight, are so very much stronger than the waves breaking in the air above. A narrowly scoped, intimate wildehopps fanfic about love, self-doubt, and catharsis.
1. Chapter 1

Undercurrents – a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

Author's Note - Welcome!

This fic includes a suggested soundtrack designed to complement some scenes. It is not mandatory to understand the story, and please feel free to ignore any and all text {between braces, such as this} if you're not interested in listening along. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

Disclaimer: I hold the Zootopia IP in singular ownership. In fact I am a clone of Walt himself, created from genetic material harvested from a finger he lost while test riding the original Space Mountain, and heir apparent to the entire Disney Media Empire. The Disney estate can feel free to dispute my farcical claims.

* * *

{The Gandharvas - The First Day of Spring}

It was Friday night, and Nicholas P. Wilde was lounging with his button up shirt half open on the plaid sofa in his apartment's living room, watching inter-borough ice hockey on ZSPN 3. The Tundra Town Penguins - the de-facto (and frequent) league champs - were currently being taken apart by the Downtown Browns, Nick's home team. This season was turning out to be a good one for the Browns.

Nick would have preferred the recliner directly in front of the TV instead of the couch, which was further off to the side, but Finnick the Fenec had years ago claimed the La-Z-Cub as his for hockey nights, and Nick was far too fond of having teeth to try and get the rights to sit in his own chair back.

"MOTHER FUCKER!" Finnick roared at the TV as the Browns scored again, 4-1.

Finnick was a Penguins fan.

"Y'know, big guy, we don't _have_ to follow through every time I make you a bet."

Finnick shot Nick a dirty look: "Shut up, cop! Maybe you forget how it works outside the fuzz yard, but I sure don't."

Nick sighed, "Look, Finnick, I don't need the money. I was just-"

"You take my money, or I'll break your fucking ankles."

Nick believed him. Finnick might have gone straight a year ago about the same time Nick entered into the Academy, but the memories he had of what the little Fenec could do with a baseball bat when threatened still occasionally surfaced in his nightmares. It was pretty certain that nobody would be robbing the Pawpsicle Parlor with him running and Mr. Big bankrolling the place.

"You are much more fun to be around when your team is winning."

Finnick grunted and took a swig of his beer, watching a polar bear check a moose into the corner, flattening him. Then one of his huge ears twitched towards the front door of the apartment: "You expecting someone?"

On cue there was a rapid knocking at the door.

"I think Judy said she was coming by tonight," Nick said, and levered himself up out of the couch to answer the door. Sure enough, Nick was greeted by the black tufted tips of grey bunny ears until he looked lower. Below her towering auditory hardware, Judy was wearing a huge grin and carrying a covered pupperware cake tray.

"Hiya, Hopps. To what to I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Judy gave him a once over, noticing the amount of police-fitness toned chest on display, but didn't spare him another glance as she brushed past and set the pupperware on the coffee table, giving Finnick a little wave, which he acknowledged with a lifted beer bottle. "Do I need a reason? Is it so weird that I want to spend time with a friend after work?"

"Well, no, but I figured you'd've had enough of me by the time you went home."

Judy laughed; "Your cheerful disposition and positive attitude is what I like best about you, Slick. Besides, it's not like we can relax a whole lot on patrol."

"I'm relaxed at work, Carrots."

Judy gave him a look of total disbelief, pointed directly at his ears, then shook her head with an harsh exhalation and walked to the kitchen. "Do you have any more of that Dragon Mead scotch ale from last weekend?" she asked as she opened the fridge that towered over her. Nick started to answer but Judy cut him off before he got more than a syllable out "Never mind, I found it. Thanks!"

Nick shook his head, padded back to the couch, and slumped back down in the corner to watch the game, taking a drink from the beer he'd left on the side table. Judy was so… present. Intense. She seemed to experience each moment like a wonder. Even after a year of knowing her, and six months of patrol work as partners (although Precinct 1 often depended on its patrol force to do detective work as well), her delight in everyday experiences still shone to like a light to him. Nick might have been a tried-and-true skeptic and probably always would be, but the first mammal who had believed in him, in his ability to be more than what society said his species could and should be, would always be able to bring a special light into his life.

His thoughts wandering, Nick didn't notice Judy leap up onto the couch, landing hard in the middle seat to his left. While Nick scrambled to keep his beer from spilling mid-swig from the jostling the forceful rabbit had given the couch, she asked, "So, what'd I miss?"

"Buncha refs on their knees, blowing the game!" Finnick responded, as a scuffle broke out on ice; "Get 'im!"

Beer successfully recovered, Nick looked to where Judy sat with an oversized-in-her-hands bottle between her legs, her feet not reaching the ground on the canine-sized couch, a big smile on her face. She was wearing leggings and a stretched sweat shirt, dressed as casually as Nick, although a slight bit more modestly. "I thought you didn't support any of the ZHL teams. Or care about sports. Did they even have sports back in dirt farm central?"

Judy took a long drink of her beer, "Cheese and crackers that is good after today. And for your information, Bunny Burrow has a championship horticulture team."

"…I don't think growing plants counts as a sport, Carrots."

"I can enjoy hockey as much as the next mammal, even if I don't care which team wins," she bristled.

"Fair enough."

Judy looked over to him as he leaned back into the cushions, focusing back on the game. His ears were pointed up, facing forward. And he had absolutely lied when he said he was relaxed at work.

As much as he was a consummate sly, silver-tongued sweet talker, Nick had never been able to completely eliminate the almost subconscious physical tell of his mood that was his ears. He had settled for looking constantly tense, the points drawn in straight line to the tip of his muzzle, to try and hide his real emotions mid-hustle. That drawn, pointy position and look had become his trademark and Judy had thought for quite some time that it was just some quirk of his physiology that his ears were so backswept until she had caught him dozing in the academy bunk room, police procedure manual on his chest, ears perked up and relaxed in his slumber.

It had been a little disarming for Judy to realize how hard he must have worked to hide that particular physical sign of his feelings – that, or he was just constantly that nervous in public.

Little by little, as he settled into the authority and respect of being an officer of the law, his ears had been more cheerful looking more often. Still, he never looked as relaxed at work as he did right now, despite any airs he might put on, if the position of his ears was anything to go by. His half open shirt was another dead giveaway, one that found her gaze lingering on a little longer than was strictly polite.

With a bemused shake of her head, Judy turned back to the TV. As a rabbit with roughly 100 brothers, Judy understood the importance of quiet Man Time spent together, and didn't feel the need to fill the space with conversation that would probably be unwanted, although she had come by on a bit of a mission. She watched the large mammals compete on the rink with her friends, but it was little more than noise and movement after the day she and Nick'd had.

A routine response to a domestic violence call had spiraled into something much, much weirder as they'd found, in a medium animal apartment complex in Savanna Central, not a sheep being harmed by a wolf, but an inter-species "Dungeon." Upon arriving at the scene, Judy and Nick had immediately heard the bleating and growling that had indicated something terrible was going on inside to the mammal that placed the complaint. When no one had answered their knocks and announcement, they had broken the door latch and stormed in, weapons drawn, only to find a wolf in leather gear 'abusing' a lamb while her ram, wearing a hood, observed the proceedings. Of course, before there was any hope of clearing up the situation, a handful of tigers, other wolves, and a wolverine had entered from another room, snarling at the invasion of privacy, and scared, Judy had called for backup.

The result was a far-too-public exposure by numerous officers of a group of mammals who wanted desperately to preserve their privacy. The taboo nature of the club had left a bad taste in most of the officers' mouths, and the paperwork afterward meant that Judy and Nick had spent most of the afternoon having to think about the odd combination of fetishes that had been thrown in their path.

Although Judy had been thoroughly put off by the leather, chains and whips, she had been surprised to find herself oddly intrigued by the idea of inter-species relations, particularly between a predator and prey species. In Zootopia they weren't exactly… frowned upon, but they definitely weren't very common or always well accepted. Judy had never been put off by the concept – who were they hurting? – and it always made her happy to see couples, no matter what their makeup. Unbidden, the image of a sly grin and emerald green eyes had popped into her head. Nick? What the hell was _that_ supposed to be? Judy gave her head shake, as if to clear her mind's eye by force.

While mulling over her thoughts from the day, Judy had polished off her beer, so she hopped up to get another. As she passed between Nick and the TV, he found his eyes drawn to her wide hips and curved butt, watching her cotton tail twitch as she strode toward the kitchen. He stared at her until he abruptly caught himself, and with a confused feeling, looked instead at the pupperware container Judy had left on the coffee table.

"So, what'd'ya bring me?"

Judy's ears peaked from behind the fridge door.

"Just a little surprise for today."

"Today? Is there something special about today?"

Judy paused in front of the couch, before hopping up, looking a little crestfallen as her ears drooped back. "No, I guess not…" she said, glancing quickly at where Finnick sat, before she climbed back up to her seat with a second beer. Nick followed her eyes, and settled back into the couch.

"Ah. Just a gift between friends, then."

Judy nodded, beer bottle tilted back mid-drink.

Finnick spoke up from the depths of the recliner, "I guess you don't mind if I bust into whatever it is, then, Hopsy."

"No! I mean, yes, but… I… I guess if you want, it's, uh…"

Finnick leaned forward in the La-Z-Cub, looked at Judy's obvious anxiety, and rolled his eyes: "Oookay, I know when I'm not wanted." Nick and Judy both began to splutter protests, but Finnick interrupted, "Shut it! It's not like this game is going to get any better. I'm goin' home."

Nick stood to let Finnick out, and followed him to the door. Finnick paused outside and turned back to face Nick, giving him a significant glance while leaning his head in the direction of where Judy sat on the couch.

"Have a good night, big guy. You can pay me that bet next week."

"Fuck you, pig!"

"That's not a very polite way to address an officer of the law, now is it?"

"You're right! It's an insult to the swine community!" Finnick flipped him off from down the hall, before turning a corner.

Shutting the door, Nick paced back to the couch and sat down.

"Well. Can I see what's in the pupperware now?"

"I feel like I pushed him out the door," Judy said with trepidation.

"I don't think we could have forced Finnick to leave if we _both_ tried shoving him out the door. He wouldn't have left if he didn't want to. Anyway, let's see what you wanted me to get all to myself."

Judy looked on, ears perked, as Nick pried open the container, revealing a blueberry pie with a note stuck to the top, which read "A year ago, I apologized to a fox for being a dumb bunny who didn't deserve his friendship. And he accepted my apology. Thanks, partner, for being a better mammal than I had earned – Judy" in her neat, looped handwriting.

"Aw, thanks, partner. I'm happy I'm your friend, too." He paused. "Was that only a year ago? It feels like it was 10... I can't even believe that was the same guy. So much has changed. I'm so much happier. All thanks to you," he said, smiling at her.

Judy beamed at him, blushing a little. "Nah, we just make a good team. Speaking of, the pie is from another great fox-bunny partnership – my parents and Gideon Grey bakeries, from my hometown. Seemed appropriate."

"Wait, these are blueberries from your parents' farm? Hoh man, I _gotta_ have a piece of this."

"I'll get it," Judy said, and hopped down, leaving her second empty bottle on the coffee table as she walked into Nick's kitchen to get plates and a pie server. She returned quickly with them and another beer for herself, handing the utensils to Nick. He cut himself a slice, and went to cut a second slice for Judy when he noticed she'd only brought one plate: "Aren't you going to have some?"

"Nah, it's all yours, Slick. I can get more whenever I want."

Nick shrugged, and forked up his first bite. The moment it hit his tongue he shivered and melted in a near orgasmic shudder, which Judy watched possibly a little too intently as his chest fur trembled.

"Hhhuuuuuhhhh that is divinely good."

Judy giggled as he devoured the slice and cut himself another, eating with soft happy noises and many closed eye reverences.

"Are blueberries a sexual experience for all foxes, or just you?" she asked, mirth in her eyes.

"You're the one who said you didn't want any," he responded, "although I doubt you'd be able to restrain yourself as well as I do."

Judy punched his arm in response. Nick rubbed the spot she hit, shooting her an over-exaggerated hurt look, which she laughed at. Then he tossed the TV remote to Judy. "You pick something. I'm sure you've had enough hockey for the night," he said, while standing to collect the pupperware, dishes, and empty bottles to take to the kitchen. When he returned, with a glass of water in hand, Judy had put on Uncle Buck, the classic comedy about a grizzly bear trying to take care of a family of deer children.

About a half hour into the movie, Judy finished her third beer, setting the empty bottle on the coffee table in front of the couch, and straightened back up, losing her balance and slumping over towards Nick as the strong ale abruptly hit her. Nick reached over and pushed her back to vertical. "Whoa there, Judy. Maybe we better cut you off."

"Nahhh, um'fine," she said, waving a paw at him and slipping the other direction. Nick's left paw shot out and grabbed Judy's arm before she fell over to the other side "Ohhhhkay then, fluff. I _totally_ believe you," he said. Judy climbed her way along his arm paw over paw, nestling herself under it and against his side. She huffed into his shirt, "There, now I can't fall over," staring at the TV.

{Tonic - If You Could Only See}

Nick had his arms up, surprised that the bunny had been so bold. Sure, they'd hugged and been close, but this was way more intimate than they'd ever ventured before. Still… it felt… right. Like she was supposed to fit there. Nick lowered his arms, wrapping his left around her to rest a paw on her hip. Her upright ears were just about at muzzle level, her muzzle against his ribs and shirt. She fit against him like the missing piece of a puzzle. Nick had this odd feeling of completeness, and sank into muzzy, hazy contentment while watching a silly movie with a beautiful bunny against his side.

Beautiful. Not a word he'd applied to Judy before. Cute, yes, much as she was liable to swat him for it. Passionate. Vivacious. Intense. But not beautiful. Not before the undercurrent of deeper emotion he'd barely registered before had made itself known to him in that moment.

Judy adjusted her legs, moving against him in a way that brought a little flutter to both their hearts. She didn't know what boldness had come over her in the moment, but she felt safer and more content then she could recall. She was exactly where she wanted to be, cuddled up to the lean, toned frame of her rock and partner. Her worries fell slowly away as she felt his warmth against her and breathed in his musky, spicy scent.

They watched the rest of the movie in that position, but eventually alcohol and fatigue from the day won out, and Nick felt Judy slowly go limp against him. She started to snore softly. He chuckled, and turned off the TV. At his motion, Judy's ears drooped back as she sleepily crawled further onto Nick's chest, putting herself in his lap and burying her muzzle in his chest fur, gripping it with both paws. Her right leg folded beneath her, her left resting between Nick's thighs. Subconsciously she rubbed her chin into his chest, and settled with a soft sigh.

Nick could smell that she had marked him. A bunny, had scent marked a fox. It should been off putting, being marked by a prey animal, but it wasn't – it smelled wonderful, just a more intense version of her lovely scent. He sighed himself, wrapped his arms around her shapely form to hold her more securely, and rubbed the side of his muzzle against her head, marking her right back. He squeezed her, and she relaxed into his soft chest fur, breathing deeply. Nick watched her intently until he drifted off too, head leaning against the couch, arms around his best friend.

* * *

AN: More to come. Unlikely in a swift fashion. Comments and questions welcome and encouraged.


	2. Chapter 2

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N – Please feel free to ignore any and all music suggestions {between braces, such as this}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

A/N 2 - Edits. Grammer and, spellung fixed, vague language expanded on, content added.

Now, on with the show.

* * *

{Björk - Jóga}

Judy Hopps woke with a very slight start. She breathed in deeply as she gently stretched, coming slowly into wakefulness. There was a strong, pleasant, musky scent in her nose, a bed of softness above the warm surface she awoke on. The warm, gently rising and falling surface.

Wait.

This wasn't her bed.

And that scent. In her head it caused the briefest tickle of panic in her hind brain, quickly smothered by an overwhelming sense of security, of contentment – which was when her eyes shot open.

She knew that scent.

It was Nicks, and it was _way_ stronger than she'd ever smelled it before, even in his apartment.

…which was probably because I _fell asleep_ on his flipping _chest_ , she realized.

Very, very carefully, Judy pushed her muzzle out of Nick's fur, finding herself slightly stuck to his chest due to drooling on him in her sleep. She simultaneously felt disgusted at herself and brutally embarrassed, and just a little bit panicked.

She had to get out of there, without waking him up.

Now was absolutely not the time – nor Nick the person - to try and figure any of this out.

With her head up, Judy looked around and realized it was still night time, and that they were on his couch. She was more-or-less sitting on his lap. Nick still dozed beneath her, seemingly unaware that she had woken up. Apparently he was a deeper sleeper than his snatched naps inside their cruiser indicated.

Exercising as much patience and care as she could, Judy gently slid off of Nick and to the floor. Thankfully he did little more than snort and shift in his sleep.

Judy crept up to the door, slowly and gently unlatched it, eased it open, set the pawle twist lock, and eased it closed behind her. She finally relaxed when the door latched shut with a soft click.

She slid to the base of the door, head in her paws. Oh, cheese and crackers. How did that happen? How did I _let_ that happen? I don't have any idea what this means. What he meant. Why it felt _good_ to wake up there. This is wrong, isn't it? This is… Not the time or place to be doing this.

Judy checked her phone – 4:13am. ZTA subways ran every half hour this late, and if she hurried, she could catch one back to Pangolin Arms in Savannah Central from the station down the street. With a mission to focus on, Judy found it much easier to corral her thoughts; pushing everything to the back of her mind, she stood up and marched herself out of the apartment building out onto the city streets and the subway waiting below.

* * *

{Tom Waits - 9th Hennepin}

On the ZTA Inner Loop, in an empty subway car, Judy sat cradling her chin, looking at the floor, waiting for the announcement for her stop.

She couldn't stop smelling Nick. His scent was all over her. Worst of all, she couldn't decide if that bothered her or not.

The subway lurched to a stop at Pack Street, and Judy watched a tired looking grey wolf got on the car, noting his casual gait and lack of lumps that would indicate a concealed weapon. He was staring at his phone when his nose twitched. Then he gave a few deep sniffs, obviously scenting something, and followed his nose up to look at Judy, who he found looking right at him. His eyebrows rose in a look of surprise and some discomfort, and Judy caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of the subway windows.

Her face fur was a mess – distorted from being mashed into a vulpine chest and fixed in place by drooling on that chest for hours. She scrubbed at it with her paws, trying to get it to lie more normally, and gave the wolf a hesitant smile. The wolf, judging this encounter to be well below the expected weirdness level of a late night ZTA train, shook his head, rolled his eyes, and turned back to his phone.

Judy resumed her ponderous pose, trying to tease out a better sense of her feelings as the car jostled and bounced down the uneven tracks. All she found, however, was a kind of white-noise static. She felt kind of happy, but also kind of sad, and quite confused. What she felt most keenly, however, was a lack of information. As much as she took pride in being able to read Nick on the job – and indeed, their ability to communicate non-verbally was a huge asset as partners – she was quickly realizing that she just didn't _know_ what he was thinking outside of the work environment. As much as he was her best friend, she realized she really didn't know Nick very well – certainly not well enough to glean anything more from her alcohol-distorted memories of last night.

All too easily, however, his smirking, sarcastic, quippy sense of humor reared its head high in her mind, and Judy was forced to simply cross the idea out of her head that anything with a deeper serious meaning had occurred. It just didn't fit, not into what she knew about the fox.

She sighed. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he wouldn't be waiting at the end with a smirk and a "Gotcha!" That handsome, knowing smirk and half lidded emerald eyes.

Nope! Judy thought, shaking her head. This has to be a joke of his. Still, though she doubted any sincerity on Nick's part, deep within her heart was the faintest glowing ember that wished that he was.

Thankfully the subway ride wasn't far, and Judy found herself in her apartment not long after 5am. Opening her door and staring down her narrow room at her small bed at the end, sleep felt like the furthest thing from her mind. There was simply too much noise in her brain to relax.

With a noise of frustration, Judy stalked in, grabbed her shower bag and a change of clothes, and spun to march right back out – what she really desperately needed right now, she decided, was a shower, and to scrub Nick's scent out of her fur.

Judy tromped down the hall to communal bathroom, and after returning some of the beer she had borrowed to its natural habitat, found an empty shower stall and turned on the faucet. She stripped down and hopped into the steaming shower spray.

One of the few luxuries of her apartment was the nearly endless hot water. If you could get into a shower, you were guaranteed a warm one for as long as you wanted. Feeling the knot of anxiety she had unknowingly been carrying in her shoulders finally beginning to unravel, Judy rested her head against the institutional-blue tiled shower wall, ears drooping down in front of her, enjoying the simple pleasure of the hot water running down her body. After a minute she grabbed her bunny-fur shampoo and started to lather up.

{The Hives – Knock Knock}

Judy scrubbed herself ear-tip to toe, happy to wash away the physical reminders of the confusing night before. Rinsed off, she drew a deep breath through her nose, enjoying the patchouli scent of her soap, and… the scent of that damn fox. Judy sniffed at her arms, legs, and ears, trying to see where she'd missed a spot, and eventually concluded that the odor was coming from her head. She lathered up her head again to get the last of it.

After she rinsed her head again, she drew in another deep breath, and… there it was again. Nick's scent. With a sharp exhalation, she poured a bigger pile of soap into her paw, and scrubbed viciously at her head with her blunt claws, desperately trying to get the scent out. Another rinse, and she sniffed again, nose twitching. Her soap, the bleachy smell of the shower room, and rising above it, _THAT DAMN FOX_.

With a noise of frustration, Judy tried once more to scrub out Nick's scent mark, to no avail. Feeling how light her fur shampoo bottle (sent from home by one of hippy sisters) was getting, Judy gave up.

Judy was mad as hell. Nick had scent marked her. That wasn't something that any mammal took lightly, not bunnies and especially not (she knew) foxes. For the sake of some joke, he'd _claimed_ her? Marked her as his? Made her _property_? Judy had plenty of patience for Nick's sense of humor – it really was part of why she liked him so much – but this was a step way, way too far.

Toweling and blow drying off, Judy decided that some girl time was exactly the order of the day. No one other than her co-workers were likely to be up at 6am on a Saturday, so, while walking back to her room and fingering the towel around her neck, she paged through her phone, looking to see who might be available.

Judy decided to text Francine Trunkaby about meeting up. While they were the polar opposite of each other, size wise, they were both young, single females in the big city – and once Judy had so grandly proven herself as an officer almost a year ago and integrated more completely into the force, they had become fast friends, particularly because they happened to be the only female herbivores at precinct 1. Hopefully she could help Judy sort out the mess in her head.

Judy sent to Francine: "hey Francine, wanna grab breakfast this morning?"

The response came a few minutes later, as Judy was finishing up picking out an outfit for the day: "sure just finshd morning jog meet you at Pandera svana centrl park?"

"20 min ok?"

"yuh"

Thankfully, Judy's boarding apartments were only about a 10 minute walk from Savanna Central Park, and the Pandera chain location there, which served all sizes and types of animals. Judy set out in a flannel shirt from home and pair of yoga pants that hugged her lower body, showing off the work she put in to stay in peak, crime-fighting condition.

* * *

{The Shins – New Slang}

Francine was waiting for Judy when she stepped into the Pandera, wearing a tent-sized t shirt and running shorts with head and wrist bands.

"Heya, Hopps. Hope you don't mind, the large mammal meals take forever to make so I already ordered for myself."

"Of course not! I'm just glad you were already up. I really need some girl talk - you wouldn't believe the night I had."

Judy stepped forward and completely unselfconsciously gave Francine's left leg a tight hug. Francine leaned over and wrapped her trunk around the bunny, exchanging as much of an embrace as the two vastly different-sized mammals could manage. As she released her, Francine breathed in through her nose, and made a face.

"Phew! Judy. Did you forget to shower? You smell like a fox."

Judy blushed a little, her ears darkening, her nose twitching.

"Yeah, I know… Let me grab some food and I'll tell you about it."

Francine nodded, and hearing her name being called out, picked up her order from the kitchen – a massive salad bowl full of greens.

Judy ordered a carrot-ginger muffin and a coffee, quickly joining Francine at a table with extra-tall chairs for smaller mammals.

"So," Francine said between bites of salad, more greens wrapped in her trunk, "last night."

"Yeah…" Judy sighed, gathering her thoughts, "Yesterday was sort of an… anniversary for me and Nick."

"You guys closed the Night Howler case a year ago, right?"

"Right. Also, it's the same day we kind of… made up after I got back to town after being gone for that month."

"Made up?"

Judy looked down at her coffee, still feeling shame from her actions a year back. "I did more than mess up a press conference back then. I hurt Nick, personally, when I said some of that stuff. I had been home for a month and stumbled onto the missing clue for the case, so I rushed back into town to fix things - specifically with Nick. I apologized to him and begged his forgiveness, and I was very lucky that he forgave me and let me be his friend again. Anyway, it's a happy memory for me, at least, so I brought him a pie to celebrate."

"It seems like things didn't go so well, then... Was it the wrong kind of pie?"

Judy laughed, peeling the wax paper off of her muffin and taking a bite. "No, he loved the pie. That had nothing to do with it. I was a few beers deep at the end of the night, so things are a bit hazy, but I remember leaning on him watching TV because my balance had gone."

"How many beers did you have?" Francine asked, her expression clearly saying she thought it had been a lot.

"Not many. My balance just happens to go first when I drink. Anyway, the thing is that I don't remember much after that, but I woke up this morning… curled up on his chest. And apparently he scent marked me sometime last night."

"Oh geez. What did he say?"

Judy looked a little guilty while she answered, "He didn't say anything. I didn't give him the chance, really – I snuck out this morning before he woke up."

"Oh, Judy. Why'd you do that?"

"I… I don't know. I was confused and conflicted about how I feel about the whole thing, other than being mad at him for scent marking me."

"Why does that make it so much worse?"

"Scent marking is about territory for predators, right? It says I'm his property! You just don't _do_ that unless you're, like, really, really involved with someone."

"Wow. That is very not cool."

"I know, right?!"

"Not to mention, you have to walk around smelling like a fox for days!"

Judy nodded emphatically, taking a sip from her coffee and another bite from her muffin. The she sighed, folding her arms on the table and laying her head down on them, cheek to back-of-paw. Her ears drooped back as she said, "Yeah. So, I'm mad at him for that. But I don't know. I feel like I'm not really mad that he did it - I think I'm more mad that he did it as a prank."

Francine, mid bite, rotated her paw in a circle to encourage Judy to continue.

"I don't know. I'm just confused. I don't know what I feel right now."

"Well… what does Nick make you think of?"

"Huh?"

"You know. Like, word association, or something."

"Oh. Uh… well, um, he's clever, and sarcastic, and funny, and he makes me laugh…" Judy trailed off.

Francine motioned with her paw, again.

"Err. He's thoughtful, and has a warm heart, somewhere in there," Judy smiled, her eyes drifting closed as she turned her head to rest on her other cheek, "he really cares. And he's so smart, and makes me feel so safe and relaxed. And handsome… for a fox, I mean," she quickly recovered, abruptly frowning as she seemed to realize what she was saying.

Francine chuckled, "You've got it bad, Judy."

"Got what?" Judy asked, straightening up, her ears perking.

"You've got a crush!"

"On Nick?! No. No way. He's not my type. Too much of a prankster. Walled up and distant. And he's a fox. Not just any predator. Like, the exact species my instincts are hardwired to be terrified of."

"Oh, come on, Judy. You guys obviously get along great, and I know you're above specieism."

"That's not what I mean. Of course I'm not scared of Nick - not even a little bit. I trust him with my life every day! It's just... different, when you're talk about love and sex and hormones. That's all physical, instinctual stuff."

"Maybe. But, wires get crossed up all the time with that kind of thing - maybe it's part of what attracts you to him?"

"Look. Whether I have a crush on him or not – and I _do not_ , for the record," Judy said as Francine rolled her eyes "– we've never talked about it. He's never made any advances toward me."

"Until last night?"

"Yeah, 'make Judy a confused mess by putting her drunk butt on my chest and scent marking her.' He's got the moves."

"You don't _know_ he's just pranking you," Francine said.

"I do. It's just another hustle, except I get to be the butt of the joke this time."

Francine paused, tapping her blunt nails together, and said with some hesitation, "You know, Judy, it probably wouldn't be bothering you so much if you didn't have some feelings for him."

Judy sighed, putting her head in her paws, ears drooping over them to flop onto the table. "I… maybe you have a point, Francine. But it still doesn't change anything. There's no way this isn't some big joke to him. It just doesn't make sense any other way."

"Did anything else happen last night?"

"Other than the event making me question my own feelings and the nature of my friendship with my work partner and best friend? Nope, that about covers it."

The pair paused in their conversation, both finishing off their respective breakfasts.

With another big, anxiety leaden sigh, Judy said "Thanks, Francine. I really appreciate you listening."

"No problem, rook!" Francine winked at Judy.

Judy giggled, finishing her coffee. "Hey. You're only a Corporal. Only a rank above me!"

"But what a rank it is!"

"Enough about me. How was your week?"

"Not anywhere near as exciting as yours ended up, according to the reports I read," Francine said, leering at the bunny.

"Oh carrots. That was one experience I'd rather not repeat. Nobody needs their privacy invaded like that."

Francine laughed, "I don't know, though. Putting a fetish club in an apartment building is kind of asking for that to happen, eventually."

"You still didn't answer my question, Francine."

"Oh, you know. Just patrol work. Nothing more dramatic than a bar fight."

"I hear that. At least we get to make the world a better place, somewhere in there."

"Right between kicking skateboarders out of a park and drunk perps puking in the back seat, right?" Francine chuckled, then said "Sorry, I've gotta get home. Laundry day today, you know?" while extending her trunk toward Judy.

Judy tapped her fisted paw against the tip of Francine's trunk. "Oh, I know it. Mine only takes one load, though."

"You don't get these kinds of curves without paying the price, rookie. Will I see you at the station gym for yoga tonight?"

"You can bet on it. Have a good one, Officer Trunkaby!"

"See ya, Officer Hopps!"

And with a wave and a grin, they both left the Pandera, heading opposite ways to their respective homes.

* * *

{FAILURE – Pitiful}

On her walk back home, Judy pondered Francine's suggestion. Did she have a crush on Nick?

On that smarmy, sarcastic, smiling, handsome, caring, protective fox? The one who anchored her ideas about life and what a mammal could be?

Nah. Couldn't be.

They were too different.

And they were just friends, after all. He had said it himself just last night.

But doubt crept into her mind, into the confusing mire of half-feelings that last night had upended her life into.

Well…

Maybe. Deep down, somewhere, where the ripples wouldn't show above the water.

But probably not.

* * *

A/N – Another chapter for your reading (and hopefully auditory) pleasure. Comments and questions are again, always welcome.


	3. Chapter 3

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N – A short update. Although readers are welcome to ignore it, the {suggested listening} is a little more integral to the mood of this chapter.

* * *

{Mazzy Star – Fade Into You}

Judy was gone.

As soon as he woke, Nick knew it.

The comforting weight of her body, curled up on his chest, was gone. The sweet, earthy scent of her, drifting into his nose as he slept, missing.

He opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling, reaching his paws to his chest, futilely feeling for her form. All that seemed to be left was a damp, slightly sticky patch where she had probably drooled all over him.

The morning sun streamed through the window.

Nick called out, "Carrots? Judy? Are you here?"

The silence he got in return was its own answer.

It was morning, and Judy was gone, and he had woken up alone again.

Nick drew his paws tighter, closing over the space she had been in, hugging himself.

She had snuck out. Just left, didn't say a thing. Maybe she was embarrassed, or forgot the night before, or realized she just made a big mistake…

Nick sighed, letting his paws drop.

Then he bolted upright.

Oh, _shit_. Judy's going to be so pissed at me.

No matter what other reason she'd left, he'd scent marked her, and there was no way she knew how or why that'd happened.

Nick stood up, stretching out the kinks sleeping on the couch had left in his body, and searched his dark-painted living room for his phone. Eventually he found it buried between the seat cushions of the plaid couch they had made a bed out of.

No calls, no texts, nothing from Judy. It was 8am, hours after they'd both be up for work.

Nick dropped his head into his paws, groaning while he dragged them down his face as he lifted his muzzle up. He hadn't been in this much trouble since he'd rearranged the letter keys on her work keyboard to spell out "Carots iz dumb." As angry as she'd been then, Nick was pretty sure this would be worse.

Coffee. What he needed right now was coffee. Police work might have bent his naturally vespertine sleep schedule into a more diurnal pattern, but he still needed something to wake himself all the way up and get his brain working.

Nick shuffled into his retro, red-paneled kitchen to try and assemble his day. Judy had left her own mark on his chest, and he enjoyed the scent she had left behind as he filled the coffee machine with water, ground coffee beans, and started the machine. As the aroma of brewing coffee filled the room, Nick sat on a stool next to the kitchen island, looking down and kneading his tail in his paws.

Just what had last night meant? Judy had never done anything quite that intimate with him – she couldn't have, really, because Nick hadn't let her get that close. It wasn't a secret to him that Judy, and his relationship with her, was part of how Nick drew the lines that defined who he was. Not so long ago, he had lived in a fortress of acerbic bluster, sarcasm, and distrust, walls he built to insulate himself from society; a clear bulwark between his deepest inner self and what society expected of him. Society saw a shyster, and damned if he wasn't going to rise to it and be the best swindler possible. He'd laugh at them all the way to the bank.

But it was a depressing existence. Nick had never wanted to just be a sly fox. Never wanted to fall into the stereotype. It was a life built on spite. As irritated as he'd been that some up-start, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bunny cop had trapped him into helping her, he'd felt the cracking of that castle in his mind. The castle where he'd paced as a lonely king.

Judy breathed light and life into him. It was like…

His coffee machine starting slurping, the brew finishing up.

It was like the first taste of coffee after a very long, very deep sleep.

Nick dropped his tail and poured himself a cup of life-juice, sipping it carefully as he pondered how she'd changed him.

By simply believing in him, by encouraging him to pursue something greater, Judy had turned his life on its head. The parts of him he buried deep below – the desire to be accepted, to do good in life, to make the world better – they began to crawl out again. She'd made a mistake, sure, but she was so sincere – so honest and regretful, it would have been far crueler to hold against her what she'd said in a state of anxiety and fear, held hostage by reporters whose job it was to stir the pot.

No, he couldn't stay mad. Not at her.

Through her support at the Academy, and working together the past six months, Nick had settled into the life she had helped him shape. He teased her and made her smile, and she seemed to see the better parts of him better than he could. It was undeniable; Judy's presence was integral to his life. His best friend.

It dawned on him, though, that he'd never told her any of this. Never told her what she meant to him, what she had done for him. Old habits die hard, it would seem – there were still walls up between himself and the world, even for Judy.

So then.

Last night.

{Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – You Need Me On My Own}

Last night… something had broken the surface. She'd been drunk, probably, or had lowered inhibitions, at the very least.

When she'd curled up next to him, Nick had expected himself to feel invaded, a line crossed that should not have been. To his surprise he had felt the opposite – it felt like working on a car you had struggled with for hours, wrestling with a part that just won't fit until you turned it to just the right position, and then dropped into place effortlessly. In retrospect he should have known – nothing ever went the way he expected with Judy.

So something more could be there. Cripes. He might be crushing on a bunny. A forthright, direct, forceful, honest rabbit – everything he wasn't, and the age-old prey of his species, to boot. She was energy and sunshine, he was phlegmatic and wry. They were opposites, really, and it'd be fighting instinctual urges the whole way.

Her scent, still on his chest as Nick turned things around and around in his head, was becoming less relaxing and more cloying every second. What he needed was a shower.

He stood and paced to the bathroom in the one-bedroom apartment he rented on the outskirts of the Downtown district, stripping and tossing his clothes into the open hamper in his bedroom as he passed. Nick turned into the black and white checkered bathroom, and after relieving himself, flipped on the shower, waiting for the water to rise through the creaky, clanging plumbing in the old building. Once the temperature had stabilized, Nick stepped into the bathtub below the shower head and let the heat from the water ease into his muscles.

He pondered the idea that had formed in his mind over his cup coffee. Did he have a crush on Judy?

On that bright, honest, beautiful, amethyst eyed, force-of-nature, bunny? The one who had blown a barn-door sized hole in his life and gave him the courage to make himself anew?

Nah. Couldn't be.

They were just too different.

But a thread of warmth cut through his melancholic train of thought, into the walls he was hastily trying to reassemble around himself.

Well…

Maybe. Somewhere below, in the undertow, deep underneath the cresting waves.

Probably, even.

Shit.

* * *

A/N - Please comment if you find the music suggestions enjoyable, extraneous, or annoying - personally I've found they only sometimes work and would appreciate feedback.


	4. Chapter 4

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N – My greatest dream is that you're mad at the characters, not the writer. Please feel free to ignore {music suggestions in braces}, as always.

{If you do go looking for music, please note that the Tool song I suggest is typically online as the second half of a single video for both Parabol and Parabola, which is about 10min long. You're looking for Parabola alone, which is about 6min.} All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{The Von Bondies – C'mon C'mon}

Judy was quickly coming to the conclusion that she needed more hobbies. Upon returning home from Pandera, she'd done her one load of laundry, cleaned her closet of a room, finished up a report from the week, and paged through Muzzlebook, constantly refreshing the feed while listening to her CarrotPod shuffle.

And it was only _ten thirty._

I'm never usually this bored on the weekends, she thought, sitting at her beaten up wooden desk.

It was true – she always had some sort of plans. Last weekend, she'd gone to an aquarium with Nick. The week before had been… no, the week before she'd had the weekend shift, so she was working… with Nick. The week before that… what was it again? Oh, right, the beer festival at Fishtown Market in Tundra Town. With Nick. And a concert, after… with Nick.

Cripes.

Maybe some time apart was exactly what they needed. Just one damn weekend, because it was beginning to feel like she spent every waking moment with the vulpine troublemaker.

'Don't forget the sleeping moments, too,' a voice in her head interrupted.

Judy collapsed and rested her muzzle on her desktop. She wasn't likely to forget, his scent mark still on her head and in her nose. A night together was exactly how she'd ended up in this mental quandary to begin with. She groaned, her nose twitching. It was then she realized her ears had been droopy since she'd gotten home from meeting with Francine.

Did she like him? It was hard to know. It felt like she liked the him that Nick projected to the world, the small bits of who he was that she knew for sure.

But how could you have a crush on a projection? It was like having one on a movie character. And she wasn't really sure if she had that much. Mostly she was just in turmoil. Confused. And that was as much as she could make any sure guess off of – something so small and obviously pranky, even if it was kind of intimate, shouldn't be this… upsetting if there weren't any other emotions there.

Besides which, she was almost completely certain that he didn't have any feelings for her. Not that he'd ever tell her, anyway.

* * *

{Local H – Bound For The Floor}

Judy's anger at Nick scent marking her had been wearing on her all morning. Now she was just feeling confused and alone. Then she abruptly started to cry, tears falling on her paws and ears.

What. The hell. Was this. Nick always teased her for being over-emotional, but this was just… stupid! How dare he make her cry? From some _joke_?! How dare he!

Judy tried to get a good head of steam going to get angry, but it just kept dissolving into weeping.

Cheese and crackers, this was too much. And she didn't have any clear answers. Judy flopped over onto her bed and curled up, letting the tears roll out.

The thing was that, even racking her brain, Judy couldn't find any clear reason she would be so upset. She was just so... frustrated. Wrung out. She felt like she'd been spinning in circles for the past seven hours or so. She felt helpless, trapped in some flood of emotion she didn't understand and couldn't wrap her head around.

Just then, her phone buzzed and played a text alert tone – the one Nick had picked for himself, one of Dr. Furenkenstein's monster growling.

Still sniffling, Judy leaned over and grabbed her phone from the desk and checked what the message said.

"Hey."

Helpful. That was worth totally worth a text. Judy pondered not sending anything back, but found the option dissatisfying. Instead, she typed out:

"What?"

The reply came moments later: "Oh good, you are alive. Unless someone else has Judy's phone." Then, "This is Judy, isn't it?"

He was making a joke. He could be such an asshole. And right now Judy had about zero patience for it. Her temper flared as she sent back: "A bad joke. That's all you've got to say to me?"

"Whoa whoa. You just left this morning. I was worried. Are you ok?"

"No I am not ok."

"Did something happen?" Judy snorted. Yeah, something had happened all right. This was his fault and he just kept stringing the prank along. She didn't know what the end game of this was supposed to be but she'd had enough. The jerk had made her cry!

"You can quit stringing this out, asshole. I'm not laughing."

"Wait what? Stringing what out?"

"This isn't funny, Nick. Stop it. You're hurting my feelings."

"...I think I should come over so we can talk about this in person."

Upon reading his last text, Judy immediately grew panicked and angry. She absolutely did _not_ want to see him right now.

"*I* think you'd better not."

He didn't send anything back.

Judy felt like she'd won a battle against him, but lost one against herself at the same time.

Great, now all he knew was that he'd hurt her. Time to get out the party supplies.

Judy desperately wanted to just shove this whole mess out of her mind and just forget it happened. But something wouldn't let her.

* * *

She laid in bed for about half an hour, before deciding that some physical activity would be better than just moping all day. So, she dug out a jogging outfit and some running foot wraps, and made a new playlist full of energetic, catchy Gazelle and Fur Fighters tunes. Buds in her ears, which still drooped down her back, Judy grabbed her keys and pulled open the door, which revealed a very surprised Nick standing on her door mat, right paw lifted as if to knock.

"Uh. Hi," he said.

Judy's face immediately turned angry, her brows furrowing and muzzle frowning. She slammed the door in his face as he shouted "Oh, come on, Carrots!"

That _bastard_. He'd completely ignored her.

"We are _not_ talking right now, fox," she said, leaning against the door.

"Please let me in. I'm going to look like an idiot talking to a closed door."

"Go away!"

"Sheesh, Judy. I know you're mad. I got that. At least tell me why?" he asked.

Ohhh, the nerve of him. Still playing at this nonsense. She could just see the smirk on his face, right through the door.

"You scent marked me, you jerk! A fox of all people should know what that means. I _still_ haven't gotten it out of my fur!"

"You marked me first, you dumb bunny!"

Judy's eyes went wide in shock, her nose twitching, her ears darting to vertical.

"What?"

"You… don't remember?"

She surely didn't. But it could just as easily be a lie. It seemed exactly like the kind of thing he'd say to fool her about this, just like how he'd had her thinking his favorite band was Jerry Vole for weeks on end. And this was just too big to joke about. Just as she was gearing up to shout at him some more, she heard a sigh and a tap on the other side of the door.

Then Nick said, "Judy, I'm sorry. It was thoughtless. I know you know what a fox scent marking someone means. It was too far, and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

 _That_ didn't sound like a joke. Judy's ears fell back, her nose all twitchy, and she knew she had to see his face – to see if that smirk was on it, if his ears were pulled back, if this was hustle. But she held back for the moment. Then there was another sigh, and then he said. "Ok. I can't force you to talk to me. Let's just forget this happened. I'll see you Monday."

He sounded so despondent, almost as upset as she felt, her stomach dropping to her feet as her feelings churned. No, forgetting it – even such a little thing as a weird night – that wasn't happening.

She opened the door.

His paw was on the door frame, his head hanging. His ears drooped down, the tips pointing behind him and out from his head. He was wearing a t-shirt that said 'Are you always a smartass? No. Sometimes I'm asleep!' and pair of dark jeans. There wasn't a smirk to be found anywhere near him. He looked up when the door opened.

"Does… this mean we can talk?"

"I thought you said bunnies were the dumb ones."

Nick made an annoyed face, and stepped into her apartment. She closed the door behind him. When she turned to face him, he was looking around the little room. "I always forget how dingy this place is," he said.

Judy was not amused. "What was so important that you completely ignored me asking you not come here?"

Nick folded his arms and looked down at her. She bit her lip, and looked away, saying, "Did I really scent mark you first?"

"You don't remember?"

"All I remember is feeling sleepy and safe. And waking up on your chest. Why did you put me there?"

"Judy… you put yourself there. And marked me. And then went back to sleep. It didn't wash out completely, if you want proof," he said. His ears were pointing back in nervousness, but his expression wasn't hiding anything. Judy stepped closer and sniffed at his chest. Sure enough, her scent was still there, if faint. She stepped back, feeling much more trepidation and confusion.

"Ok, I guess I did. But I don't understand why you didn't just wake me up."

{Geographer – Blinders}

"I… didn't want to let you go."

Judy felt a strange twisting in her heart. "What?"

Nick let out a deep breath, and looked down at his foot-paws. He shuffled nervously, rubbing his paws together. Then he looked up, directly into her eyes. His ears stood straight up and forward, his tail twitching on the floor behind him.

"I worked so hard, for so long, to wall off the world and everyone in it. I'd been beaten down, taught the same lesson, so many damn times, by so many different mammals. 'Can't be trusted. Troublemaker. Swindler.' I built myself a fortress to hide inside, to keep myself safe in - and nobody looked twice. But you, Judy. You forced your way through those walls to me, like the roots of a tree in the crack of a rock.

And I was terrified – _nobody_ was supposed to get in there. I'd built myself a solitary life, where I didn't have to show anyone they got to me. I'd put myself there because I was tired of being hurt.

But you pushed right in. Like my defenses were nothing. And… you didn't do it to take advantage of me. You didn't break me. You didn't do it for money, or to scam me (any more than you had to, anyway). You didn't crush what scraps of myself were still alive inside a husk of spite and sarcasm.

Instead, after you made me defenseless to you, you _believed_ in me. You filled me with your light. Your faith, your trust, your brightness – it became something I relied on. You gave me the chance to be reborn, Judy. To let the hopes and dreams I'd had as a kit become a reality. To not be spiteful, but instead to rise above society's expectations. You became integral to how I saw myself, because there was no way I could duplicate what you bring into my life.

And then, last night, you were cuddled up to me, in my arms. You'd never said anything, and might have been half asleep, but there you were. I couldn't have let go if I wanted to."

Nick fell to his knees, looking down, and his ears drooped down.

"And then. I was terrified again. I have been for a little while now. But it wasn't until this morning, when you had disappeared, that I really figured out why: I don't think I could bear to be alone again."

Nick fell silent, and sat back on his foot paws.

Judy had watched him speak, feeling a fluttering warmth grow in her belly the entire time, her eyes growing larger and larger, her ears falling almost totally limp, her nose twitching madly. She watched him fall back, looking vulnerable. He'd never talked to her like this before. The slightest niggle of doubt crept into her mind, looking for some trick, and she violently, vehemently shoved it away. Screw that.

This was Nick. And she trusted this fox.

She rushed in toward him, in a sudden motion, hugging him fiercely.

"I'm not going _anywhere_ , Nicholas Wilde."

He was stunned silent. Then he wrapped his arms around her. When he was sitting like this, she was the same height as him, if not a little bit taller. She heard his breath catch in his throat, like he was almost crying. She drew away, keeping her hands on his shoulders, and they looked each other in the eyes. There was a feeling of tension, of butterflies, in their stomachs. And then, simultaneously, they closed their eyes, leaned in, and their lips met.

{Tool – Parabola (apx. 6min long)}

Oh. OH. That's… This was… suddenly, everything about this whole weird thing made so much more sense to both of them.

It was like someone had opened floodgates of emotion they hadn't known existed. The reservoir held back, that they had never known was _held_ back, poured out.

Hungrily, they kissed, their lips sliding against each other, tongues darting to stroke muzzles, to feel the other's tongue against their own. Nick broke away after a minute, out of breath and panting, staring at Judy with hungry eyes. She looked back into his eyes without fear.

Then they hugged again, Nick rising to his knees. Judy tucked her head into his neck fur, ears drooped from the waves of emotion.

"This is gonna get complicated now, isn't it?" she said.

"Almost certainly," he answered.

"It'll be ok," she said, "We have each other."

Nick chuckled softly, nuzzling her.

A fox and a bunny.

Who would've thought?


	5. Chapter 5

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N - Somewhere along writing this it hit a natural break, and I got tired of editing. As always, musical suggestions are {inside of braces}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{HOME - Resonance}

Nick knelt, and Judy stood, holding each other for quite some time. His ears were pointed, perked straight up, hers laid back. His tail curled around her protectively. Hers twitched and waggled with contentment as she finally understood just why she'd been in such turmoil –struggling with desires she denied for a mammal who'd shown no interest back, who seemed to be playing with the feelings she couldn't acknowledge, had simply been too much to reconcile.

They just held each other. They'd hugged before, sure. But holding a mammal close who you wanted, who wanted you back, was such a deeper experience than it had any right to be, and an entirely new dimension to their relationship.

Eventually, with much reluctance, Nick was forced to quietly say, "Judy. My knees are killing me."

She squeaked, her ears darting up, and danced back, paws at her mouth, eyes contrite.

Nick smiled at her, with warmth in his eyes, as he got to his feet and hobbled to the bed, where he stretched his cramping legs.

"I would have preferred not to let go, but I couldn't stay on them any longer."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"For… keeping you in that position?"

Nick barked out a laugh.

"Stop being smaller than me. You're doing it on purpose!"

Judy giggled at his goofy joke, her expression lighting up.

Nick scooted back on her crisply made bed, resting his back against the brick behind it, his tail flopping out to his right.

"So… are you still angry at me?"

Judy climbed up on the bed next to him, lifted his right arm, and slipped underneath it, to curl up to his right side. He put his paw on the curve of her hips, pulling her closer, and hugged her to him, wrapping his tail around her again. She took it in her paws, gently stroking and kneading the dense fluff. The tip of it wagged and flicked in his delight at her touch.

"I am."

"You… are?" he asked, watching her tease the tip of his tail - as he flicked it almost subconsciously - with a not quite beatific expression on her muzzle.

"Totally. Almost red with rage," she giggled.

"Uhhh-huh."

"You're going to have to come up with something pretty amazing to make it up to me, Nick."

A smile unrolled on Nicks muzzle. "I think I could handle that," he said. "Are you enjoying playing with that?" he asked Judy, looking down at her intent expression.

Adorably, she blushed heavily, her ears tinging towards red, and she set his tail down.

"Sorry. I've been curious what your tail really felt like for forever. It's so soft and fluffy!" she said, and then twisted to look up at him. "I still don't know how you stuck me with 'fluff' as a nickname, between the two of us; you're at least twice as fuzzy as I am.

Nick laughed softly as Judy nestled back into his side, and he brought his left paw over to gently stroke her ears. She let out a soft sigh and shivered slightly against him as he ran a paw pad, and then a claw, up and down her ears. It was incredibly soothing and relaxing, almost making her feel sleepy. Judy closed her eyes and turned in towards him, paw on his chest, enjoying his ministrations. After a few minutes, though, as Nick gently increased the pressure, enjoying her reaction and exploring this new permission, Judy let out a soft moan; she was starting to feel the beginnings of a warm, wet, ache. She pushed away from him, pulling her ears from his gentle grasp, and turned to look at him.

Nick gazed down at Judy, concern that he'd hurt her somehow spelled out on his face, when she smiled at him like the sun breaking through clouds. "You're really good at that. Too good, actually. I don't think I'm quite ready for… where that was definitely going to end up going," she said. Nick looked at her with mischief in his eyes. "I'll be sure to remember that for a later date," he said. Judy blushed again, her nose twitching and her ears tilting back.

{Hey Ocean! - Beg Your Pardon}

Abruptly, Judy yawned deeply, her jaw cracking. The late spring sun was pouring into her south facing window, filling the room with drowsy heat, and Judy felt a wave of exhaustion roll over her. The emotional rollercoaster of her morning and the lack of sleep were finally catching up with her. Nick watched her eyes flutter, and said, "Somebody sneak in here and hit you with the tired stick?"

"I guess…" she yawned again, "so. I think I need a nap."

Nick pushed himself off her bed, so she could do just that, but as he stood and moved towards her door, she said "Where are you going?"

"I thought… you were going to take a nap?"

"That's the plan."

"So… you need your bed for that, don't you?"

"I'd prefer it, yes."

"Then…?"

Judy hopped off her bed and hesitated, looking nervous. She worried her paws, looking down at her feet, her ears drooping back.

"I'd also… prefer if you stayed with me."

Nick's face went from slightly confused to delighted in an instant, his ears springing up and his tail wagging. "Of course!"

Judy gave him an appraising look, then turned away from him and stripped off her shirt, exposing the sports bra she had on underneath.

"Woah," he said, drinking in her grey fur and the elegant curves her baggy top had hidden. She pulled off her running tights, rolling them over her luscious hips and down her long legs as Nick watched appreciatively. She had on plain, black boyshort panties which her tail bobbed above. Standing in her underwear, she turned to face Nick, enjoying the expression of undisguised hunger on his muzzle. It was one she had seen before, usually when he was starved at the end of a shift and got to have some kind of real meat. He looked like he wanted to… devour her. It was a little bit frightening and that much more exciting because of the predatory look in his eyes. Crossed up wires, indeed.

"I hate sleeping in clothes," she said, "Somehow I always end up tangled up in them when I wake up." She paused, then said "I showed you mine..."

Nick gave her a heated glance, before pointing a claw to the floor and spinning it in a circle. Judy rolled her eyes and turned away, listening to the rustle of cloth and the clink of a belt being undone.

Nick looked on at her form as he stepped out of his pants, and then stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and ducking his muzzle to kiss between her ears, where he could still smell his scent mark. She wrapped her arms up around his, leaning into his embrace, and then yawned again, drawing in a deep breath.

Nick chuckled and released her, gesturing towards the bed. Judy spun, noting how much toned fox muscle was on display as he stood in just his boxer-briefs, and pushed him towards the bed. Nick sat as his calves hit the bed frame, then spun and laid down on his back, his legs dangling off the end of the bunny-sized bed.

"Well, that's not going to work," she said.

"Don't worry about it," he said with a smirk, "come here."

Judy climbed onto the bed, and nestled herself against his left side, her head on his chest, her left leg over his hip. He laid his tail over her, and she sighed, resting a paw on his chest. She breathed in deeply, filling her nose with his musky, spicy scent, and felt a sensation of utter contentment and safety bloom in her heart and fill her to her toes.

"You're not going to mark me again, are you?" Nick asked, his voice rumbling in his chest against Judy's ear. She sighed, rooting the side of her muzzle into his creamy chest fur. Judy seriously considered it for a moment. That was exactly what had kicked this mess off, she thought, for good or ill - yet to be determined.

"I think once today is enough," she said.

Nick made a low, growly-purring noise in his throat as she settled and snuggled against him, her soft fur and skin against his. He lightly stroked her back with his claws, feeling Judy's weight slowly go limp against and over his side.

Twice in 24 hours I get to have her asleep in my arms, he thought. I must be doing something right.

Nick watched her sleep for a little while, until the coffee he had drank earlier started losing the battle against the drowsy heat of the sun and the warm weight of a bunny dozing on him, and he fell asleep himself.

* * *

A/N - More to come.


	6. Chapter 6

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N - As always, feel free to ignore {music suggestions in braces}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane}

Judy Hopps woke with a very slight start. She breathed in deeply as she gently stretched, coming slowly into wakefulness. There was a strong, pleasant, musky scent in her nose, a bed of softness above the warm surface she awoke on. The warm, gently rising and falling surface.

Wait.

This… _was_ her bed.

And that scent. It gave her an overwhelming sense of security, of contentment – which was when she sighed, and nuzzled deeper into that soft bed of fur.

She knew that scent.

It was Nick's, and _way_ stronger than she was used to.

…Which was probably because, for the second time in 24 hours, Judy had fallen asleep on his chest.

Judy could hear his breath and heartbeat, both slow and steady. He was asleep.

She curled herself closer against him, feeling his tail brush hers as it flicked in some dream he was having. His arms, wrapped around her still, hugged her more closely. She felt the budding of something in her chest, a weight of feeling she could not yet name.

This is perfect, she thought.

Which was precisely when, through the foggy haze of happiness and contentment Judy was ensconced in, she remembered that she was half-naked and laying on the chest of an equally half-naked male _fox_ who she'd pretty much demanded take his clothes off and go to sleep with her after he'd showed up at her place completely and definitely uninvited.

That thought was the tip of an anxiety iceberg.

Sheesh, what had she been thinking? She'd never asked _any_ of her ex's to do anything like this. Not at this speed. Sure, she'd slept with them before, like after sex or when visiting or something - but never exactly like this, like she _needed_ to feel them near her.

Not to mention this wasn't just any one night stand stretched too long - this was her _best friend_. The mammal she cared about and connected with more than any other. Moreover, he was her partner, too, in crime and stopping it. Someone who she trusted with her life, who put _his_ life in her paws daily. This wasn't a relationship she wanted to screw up. He was too important to her.

And she'd put it on the line for... what, exactly? A nap?

Judy sighed, and took in a deep breath, and his scent poured into her wiggling nose. It swirled around her thoughts and chased away her anxieties, like the most calming aromatherapy. She'd put it on the line... for him. Because to see Nick on his knees, his soul completely bared to her, scared she would reject him or run... Deep within her something just faintly glowing had burst into flame, and flipped her world even further upside-down, even as it settled her confusions. She couldn't hurt him. She couldn't leave him in that state. She had an answer - one she didn't know she had, until she gave it to him in that moment.

Unbidden, the image of an older buck and doe rabbit couple popped into her head. 'My parents. Oh lord. Complicated, already. I'm not even really awake yet.'

Judy opened her eyes.

There was still sun pouring in the window, but from a different angle than when she had fallen asleep - Judy lifted her head further and saw on her alarm clock that it was just after 2pm. Nick stirred when she moved, but didn't wake.

Lowering her head back down to Nick's chest, Judy contemplated what this whole thing was supposed to mean. They hadn't... agreed to anything, or put a name on it. They hadn't even said, really, if they _liked_ each other, although that felt like more of a formality at this point. There wasn't a plan. There wasn't... anything, really. Just a vague idea of a "them."

Judy realized something, though, her muzzle buried in Nick's fur: his scent was already powerfully linked to something in her hind brain, her physiology, that made her instantly calm and relaxed - and a little bit horny, she reluctantly admitted to herself. This left her with twofold facts: one was that some part of her had already decided what he meant to her, and how things were going to be. The other was that his closeness and scent was massively distracting from trying to think about anything else.

Always a mammal with a destination and plan, Judy felt just a little... cut adrift. Nick's specialty was going with the flow, not hers. She had fought her way upstream for years, and the sensation of being swept up in something this... out of her control, was disorienting. No matter how much delicious, distracting fox she smelled with her wiggly nose.

What Judy needed was some sort of road map, some sort of goal. This hadn't gone anything like bunny courtship, a process both stretched out and abruptly quick as it concluded, and she was a little ashamed to realize she knew very little about fox courtship (not that Nick volunteered much) beyond how important scent marking was and that they generally had monogamous, sometimes life-long partners.

Taking a mental step back (as hard as it was with the almost narcotic pheromones swirling in the air), Judy then and there made a choice: she'd see this through. This new aspect of their relationship was something that she, at least, needed to explore. Wherever it led - if he eventually realized he deserved better than a blustery, blunt, hick bunny; or couldn't handle being with a prey species... she was committed to this course.

Having made a decision and set a path to follow, Judy almost instantly felt the level of tumult in her mind ebb lower. There might be complications and anxiety yet to come - but Judy knew how to deal with adversity. Not quitting was her specialty.

* * *

{Iron Wine - Fever Dream}

Nick meandered slowly into consciousness, delighted to still feel the warm weight of a bunny on his chest. Judy's sweet, earthy scent was strong in his sensitive nose, the feeling of her fur and skin against his a comforting, relaxing sensation, both combining into a sedate bliss he had no interest in ending. He held still, trying to keep his breathing even, so he could prolong the moment as long as possible.

'I am so, _so_ lucky,' he thought. He'd poured his heart out to Judy, and she hadn't run. She hadn't been mad at how much he depended on her. She hadn't been scared by just how much of his life she had defined, without him ever asking. No, he'd just had the incredible luck that apparently she was not only okay with what he'd done, but seemed to want him back, too, for some ungodly reason.

Nick held still, his feet hanging off the end of the bed, enjoying the moment as long as he could. Far too soon for his preference, though, his reverie was interrupted by a voice - but at least it was one that gave him joy to hear in his present situation.

"Hey there, Slick."

"Go away. Nick is asleep."

Nick felt Judy reposition herself on him, laying more in the middle of his chest instead of half-on, half off.

"Nick is a really bad liar. You've been awake at least 20 minutes."

Nick chuckled quietly, then asked "I guess I didn't trick you, huh?"

"You have to get up a lot earlier than that to fool Officer Hopps," she said. Nick could hear the big smile on her face.

"I feel like that might be kind of counter-productive for my current hustle," Nick said, and finally opened his eyes.

He was greeted with Judy's wiggling nose about 4 inches from the tip of his snout. Her head was tilted, ears flopped to Nick's right, resting on her laced paws, arms laid flat across his chest. She smiled happily, looking into his eyes. Nick quickly leaned up on his elbows and kissed her.

Judy's eyes shot open, and her ears sprung up as she was taken by surprise, but they both quickly drooped down as she leaned into the kiss, moaning softly. Her lips were soft against his as they held them pressed together, savoring the feel of the other mammal. They parted entirely too soon for Judy's liking, and she gave him a very heated look as he eased back against her pillows.

"Good morning, beautiful bunny," Nick said.

Judy blushed. "It's like 2:30."

"Close enough for government work."

Nick stretched out his arms and toes, shivering with the tension of a solid stretch. Then he said, "So, since it's just 2:30pm in the morning, what do you want to do with the rest of the day?"

Judy pondered his question, laying her cheek back onto her arms, and said, "I... didn't exactly have anything planned, other than working out at the precinct gym at 9."

"Well, I wouldn't say no to just rolling around half-naked in bed with you all day," he said and smirked, "although my calves are going to start killing me eventually from my foot paws dangling like this."

Glancing at the paw-foot of her bed, Judy said "I was worried about that... I could ask the super for a medium mammal bed, or get a bigger one, maybe..."

"Ooorrrr we could use my apartment next time? It'd probably be less hassle, since I already, ya know, _own_ a bed big enough for me and everything"

"You assume there will _be_ a next time."

Nick smirked at her with lidded eyes, ears going back into what Judy thought of as his 'shyster' face: " _I'm_ not the one who was talking about going mattress shopping for the comfort of her partner in a less-than-three-hour-old relationship."

Judy blushed heavily and tried to look angry at him, but couldn't manage to keep from smiling, so she unfolded an arm and flicked his left ear.

"Ow."

"Big kit." Judy frowned, folding her arms back and setting the point of her chin on her folded paws. "...is this a relationship?"

Nick paused, looking thoughtful. "I don't know."

"I mean, I guess it was always a relationship, since there's more than one mammal laying here. But I meant more like what _kind_ of relationship."

Nicks already furrowed brow crunched in further. "I don't know that, either," he said.

"Maybe trying to figure that out would be a good way to spend the rest of the day ," Judy said.

Abruptly, Nicks stomach loudly growled at them.

"Could we start with lunch, maybe?" he said.

"Let me guess. The only thing you've put in there today is coffee."

"...maybe?"

"Where would you be without me looking after you?"

"Probably lying face down in a Tundra Town gutter freezing to death."

Judy snorted a laugh and rolled off of his chest, which gave them both a little pang of disappointment, and slid off the bed to get dressed. Before she could step away, arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and Nick pulled her to him, burying his snout in her neck fur. He took a deep breath, savoring the lupine does' sweet scent, squeezed her gently, and kissed her, gently nibbling at her skin below. Judy closed her eyes and involuntarily moaned a kind of honky, squeaky happy noise, which made Nick laugh.

"What was that?" he breathed into her neck.

{Wolfmother - Woman}

"Foxes wag their tails, rabbits make happy sounds. We are what we are, and that felt really good," she said, leaning into him. Nick grinned and rooted into her neck fur again. She shivered in pleasure against him, before pushing apart his paws and stepping away.

"Bad fox," she said, looking over her shoulder with a naughty look, posing with her tail perked up.

Like a cartoon, Nicks mouth opened up and his tongue lolled out as he panted, watching Judy. He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Judy laughed, shook her head, and turned to pull on the jogging outfit she'd discarded earlier - a baggy blue top and black athletic leggings. While she dressed, facing her armoire, her sensitive ears picked up Nick getting dressed. "I can tell you've never dated a bunny, Nick."

"Howzat?" he said, pulling on his shirt, his ears pop-popping out of the neck.

Judy didn't answer until they were both in the hallway and she was locking her door. As she turned and started walking down the hall, she said, "If you'd been with one before, you'd already know that once you wind a doe up... I wouldn't be finished with you for hours."

Judy could _hear_ Nick audibly gulp behind her from the end of the hall.


	7. Chapter 7

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist.

A/N - If you don't know what {the stuff in braces is} by now, reminding you again probably won't help. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

A/N 2 - Slight edits made. Apologies if I deleted your favorite adverb.

* * *

{Jawbox - Green Glass}

Nick caught up to Judy part way down the stairs to her apartment building's entrance, the green-painted steps creaking and groaning in echoes up and down the stairwell of the ancient boarding house. Nick felt at least one step shift beneath his pawfoot a discomforting amount - he'd been to Judy's building a few times before and he always felt he'd somehow cheated death once he made it up or down the stairs.

"Carrots... you were joking about that just now, right?"

Judy looked at him, a sun-bright, innocent smile on her face. "Joking about what, Nick?"

"Hopps..."

"Did you have an idea of where you wanted to go for lunch?" she asked cheerily.

"Judy, please..."

"I'm rather fond of that Zindian place on the Rainforest District border. They do such lovely things with curry, and the tigresses working there have such beautiful dresses..."

Nick gave up hope of getting an answer out of her. "Zindian sounds good," he said. He had plenty enough secrets he'd kept from Judy, and turnabout was fair play, after all.

Apparently miraculously regaining her ability to participate in a conversation, Judy said "Great! Do you want to walk or catch a ride?"

Nick checked his mental map, long tuned from his time on the street as a conmammal, and determined the restaurant was about two miles away - nothing for a couple of police mammals used to foot patrols and long hours, and it gave them plenty of time to talk.

"Let's walk," Nick said, as they reached the entrance of Grand Pangolin Arms. Judy went to push open the door but found a fox arm doing the job before she could even touch it. She spun and held the door open for Nick as he passed through. Nick shook his head in chagrin as Judy turned his chivalry around on him with a bow and a paw gesture.

Nick paused outside the building, charting out the quickest and then the prettiest route on his mental map. He picked the pretty one and turned right, ambling towards a park with a convenient path cut diagonally northeast through it. Judy, accustomed to Nick's sometimes meandering routes (which nevertheless always seemed to be at least slightly quicker than hers) paced alongside him.

Though Judy wore her customary cheery smile, and her ears were perky, Nick could feel nervousness radiating from her. She hadn't exactly come out and said it, but Nick knew there was huge imbalance in how well they really knew each other, and he was sure that it was eating away at the curious doe. He swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling dry, as he decided that it was time to do something he'd never considered with anyone else before.

"So, Judy..." he paused.

Judy looked up at him and was surprised to see a genuine expression of nervousness on his muzzle.

"Yes, Nick?"

"If... if you have anything you want to know about... about me, I mean; go ahead and ask."

"I ask you that sort of stuff all the time, and you never give me a straight answer."

"Yeah, I know. But I want you ask again."

"Because...?"

"Because I'll... be honest."

"You're going to tell me the truth? No evading or ducking the question?"

Nick nodded. Judy thought he looked a little sick to his stomach.

"Promise?" she asked.

"I promise."

"You promise to...?"

"I promise to answer anything you ask me truthfully."

Judy was shocked. If there was anything that defined Nick, it was his close-to-the-chest and deflecting personality. He'd just given her carte blanche to find out anything she wanted about him. She was amazed... right up until Nick's distressed expression crumbled and he said: "...as truthfully as I can."

Judy sighed loudly, with a disappointed look on her muzzle.

"Carrots... Judy. I'm sorry. There's parts of me that are hard for me to think about, let alone share."

He looked down at her, the shadows of the canopy above dappling her features as they crossed into the park. She met his eyes and smiled as she saw the effort he was putting into not hiding his distress. "...ok?" he asked.

"It's a start. A good one. Thank you, Nick."

Nick gave her a smile, a tender look in his eyes. "Well then. Ask away, fluff."

{Ruckus Roboticus - Here We Go}

"Um... what's two plus two?" she asked.

Nick answered with no hesitation: "Five."

Judy punched his side.

"Just testing you," he said, "I know it's six."

A noise of playful disgust came from the bunny walking next to him, leafy patterns of light sliding over her form.

"I kid, I kid! Really. Ask me anything."

Judy thought for a moment, then asked "What's your favorite band?"

Again, with no hesitation, Nick's mouth shot off a response "Jerry Vole."

Judy immediately looked up at him in anger and stopped walking, folding her paws. "Is it impossible for you to not lie?"

Nick stopped a step further down the path, and turned back with a distraught expression, his ears dropping back in shame.

"I'm sorry. Really. I'm sorry. Deflecting is a defense mechanism. It's hard to shut off." He gestured at his shirt. Then he sighed.

"My favorite band is Furvana."

"The one Dave Growhl was in before Fur Fighters? And Kurt Coyotain before he died?"

"That's the one."

Judy looked mollified, but worried, and asked, "Was that really so hard?"

"Like pulling a tooth."

Her worried look flowed into a sunny smile, a much more natural looking expression for her. "Well, you'd better be ready, because I have a lot more where that came from."

Her smile filled Nick with a buoyant light. Judy started walking again, and Nick offered her his left arm. She looped her right paw into the crook of his elbow and leaned her head against his arm as they resumed their stroll.

"Are there any other artists you like?"

"I dunno. I listen to everything."

"Nick, that's an even worse cop-out than Jerry Vole."

Nick tilted his head and went over his musical taste in his head.

"Um. I really like the Beetles, mostly because of John Lemming."

"...Do you have a thing for dead musicians?"

"No! Just good ones. Uh, Smashing Pumpkins is good, even though Billy Corgi is an ass. I like Toortle, Maynard Jackal Keenan is amazing. Tomcat Waits has the most amazing voice, it's like if the streets of Zootopia had a voice of their own. FAILURE is pretty cool - funny story, they were broken up for like 20 years until Maynard asked them to play at his birthday party, and then they put out an amazing album last year! I like heavy stuff like Meertallicat and Gojira, this cool metal band from Furance... and political stuff like Rage Against The Minkchine is fun... but 90s grunge is my favorite, since I grew up with that music."

Judy giggled, impressed with how much he'd disclosed, and said, "Sometimes I forget just how old you are, Slick."

"Hey! I'm hip, I'm with it! Royal Bladger is awesome, they're current!"

"Do you like anything that's not rock, Mr. 'I-listen-to-everything?'"

"Oh, um, Björkie is pretty cool, and I really enjoy Vulpinwave... old swing music is fun, too, and the dance music you get at predator clubs-"

"What's a 'predator club?'" Judy interrupted.

"Oh! Well, it's... kind of hard to describe. Maybe I can take you to one sometime?"

Judy looked a little nervous. "Do you think a bunny would be welcome at a... 'predator club?'"

"Oh sure!" Nick said brightly. "As long as you're scantily clad enough."

Judy gave Nick a puzzled look as they turned right at a fork in the middle of the park's path. Nick saw her expression and chuckled nervously.

"Anything else you want to know?" he asked her.

"Aren't you curious what music I like?"

"You like fun music that you can move to during the day, like all that garage rock from the 2000's, and quiet music for relaxing, like Feist. But your favorite is Gazelle, without a doubt."

Judy looked up at him, her mouth slightly parted in what was either surprise or frustration. Feeling her paw tense in his arm, Nick looked down at the doe.

"I like to listen to you," he said, "because you say things that surprise me. And I remember as much as I can, because that's... who I am. I haven't said a lot back - nothing with much substance, anyway - so this is hopefully time for you to catch up. So... got any more?"

Learning this made gave Judy a giddy feeling in her stomach. It was far more interesting than his music tastes, and he'd just volunteered it! Judy pondered what else she could ask him. Food was out - because they had to eat together on shift, it was one of the few of Nick's habits she actually knew something about. Then something else occurred to her: "You know," she said, "I probably could have figured all your music preferences out if I just paid attention to what you put on the radio in our patrol car."

"I don't."

"Don't what?"

"I don't put anything on the radio. I just turn it on, you change the station or play off your CarrotPod."

"Huh. I guess I never noticed."

"You can tell a lot about a person from the music they like. I learned long ago that it was a tell I could easily avoid, so I do - did. I guess I can stop, now. Man, no more Gazelle marathons, thank god!"

Judy laughed and hugged his arm closer to her modest chest. Nick felt her breasts press against his arm and a thrill ran through him, making him blush just a little.

"Um, do you have any family?"

"No siblings. Never knew my Dad. I've been... estranged from my Mom, for a long time," Nick said, obviously uncomfortable, but trying to keep his promise. "She never much approved of my... quasi-legal sources of income."

"Well... you definitely aren't running any hustles now... Why haven't you contacted her?"

"I... um... that is... Pinecone," he said, out of sheer distress.

"...Pinecone?"

"Safe-word. If I reach a... limit, I'll just say that. Ask me something else, please?"

"Ok, Nick. Sorry I pried," she said, leaning against him a little.

"It's alright," Nick sadly smiled down at her.

Judy took a moment to think of what to ask next."You always let me drive when we have a car, and I've never really questioned it. 'He's a city mammal,' I thought. 'Maybe he just hates cars.' So... do you?"

"Nope. I love em', actually. But not like, because they're status symbols or make me feel manly. I like them because they're... the ultimate expression of what mammal's can create: power, beauty, speed, conquest, sport, protection, freedom: all in one package. Or just a box to take you places. Those are the boring ones, though."

"Wow. How come you never drive the cruiser, then?"

"You seem to enjoy it too much to take the wheel from you, when we have a patrol car." Nick paused. "Y'know, I actually own a car."

"You do?! Why do you walk everywhere, then?"

"You've been on parking duty. You should know just how much of a pain a car in the city can be. Also, it's sort of a... 'special occasions' car."

"...I think that's been added to the 'something amazing' you owe me, Slick."

"That might be fun," he said. "Next?"

"Um... What do you do for fun when we're not together or at work?"

{Nirvana - Sappy}

"I sit on the floor in the middle of my living room in a fetal position, pining for when I'll see you next."

This brought a single guffaw to Judy's lips. "No, really. What are your hobbies that you never seem to talk about, since I can't recall knowing them at all. Other than hockey with Finnick."

"I read. A lot."

"...Books and a streetwise, sly fox don't seem to go hand-in-hand."

"Books don't tease you, or make disparaging comments in the hallways of ZPS middle schools, or judge you for your species. They're mostly just quiet and have a lot to share, and they're surprisingly good listeners."

Judy stopped abruptly and spun to stand in front of the tod. Her ears were all droopy and her nose twitching. "Ohh, Nick..." she said, and wrapped him up in a tight hug, her muzzle against the bottom of his chest.

"I'm so sorry. You must have had it hard growing up. No family, and no good friends, it sounds like..."

"What about Finnick? I've known him for years!"

"Right, and I'm sure he knows all about the stuff you've been telling me?"

Nick shivered in her arms, and felt a little weepy. "No, you're right. You're the only mammal I've ever wanted to share this much of myself with. Thank you for being my best friend." She gave him an extra squeeze and spun back to take his elbow. Nick cleared his throat, trying to fight against the tight feeling at the back of it.

Just as they were leaving the park, walking quietly as Judy percolated new things to ask Nick, the pair of them heard a loud shout of disgust and anger: "Unnatural! Sick! Filthy!" Nick snapped his head up angrily just as an elderly jackrabbit doe started shouting at Judy.

"You disgusting slut! Have you no pride in your species?! Paws wrapped around your ancient enemy - horrible, cheating, lying fox scum! You should be ashamed-"

The bigoted doe was cut off mid-rant as Judy exploded: "How dare you! _How dare you_! I'll share myself with whoever I wish - my fox is a _good mammal_ , and-"

Nick had watched the brief exchange and saw the jackrabbit just getting angrier as Judy talked back, and fearing a bigger scene, decided to intervene. Walking closer and pulling Judy along as he spoke, he said, "Thank goodness for your timely intervention, ma'am! This poor doe nearly collapsed upon me in delirium not ten feet back - I told her that I simply wouldn't be able to control my appetite around a fainting bunny, and now that a more appropriate animal is here to safeguard her from my slavering, tricksome jaws, I can get her away from my corrupting influence!"

At this point the pair were barely a step away from the jackrabbit. Nick pulled his arm from Judy's grip and gave her push towards the older doe. Judy stumbled forward and looked up at Nick, upset and confused, and Nick put his paw on his forehead like a fainting daisy. Then he started walking out of the park, leaving Judy with the jackrabbit, who said to her, "Now isn't that better, my dear? Away from that horrible creature?"

"Get away from me, you awful old crone!" Judy shouted, and pushed away from her to run after Nick, who had turned right at the exit and disappeared behind the high stone wall that bordered the park. She caught up to him within a few steps.

"What the hell, Nick?!"

As Judy reached his side, Nick spun her up into a hug, lifting her off the ground and clutching her to his chest. She pushed at him, clearly wanting to be put down, so Nick leaned forward and set her back on her foot paws. She faced him down angrily.

"You don't get to hug me after doing that with no explanation! Why did you push me at that... that... bitch!"

Nick's expression faded from a happy smile to one of shocked distress, as he realized his from-the-hip scheme hadn't worked out the way he thought it would. "Ah, shit," he said, and looked down at his feet, his tail limp and his ears folded.

"Well?"

"Judy, I... she looked like she was just getting angrier the more you said. She was mad at me, not you; I just wanted her to stop and not have anything worse happen."

"What was an old doe going to do to us?"

"I don't know!" Nick shouted. "Maybe she had a gun or a taser or something - I didn't want you to get hurt. Mammals who see what they expect leave you alone. The more you don't fit, the more likely they are to do something stupid."

Judy looked up him, anger flowing into sadness, her nose twitching.

"I was just trying to defuse the situation as quickly as I could. I'm sorry."

"I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, Judy. I just... feel responsible that you were being attacked just because you were with me. She wasn't really after you. She just hated me."

Judy teared up at this, and scrubbing at her eyes, said, "You shouldn't have to deal with that."

With a resigned expression, Nick shrugged and said, "I'm a fox. That's how things are. You get used to it."

"That never happens when we're at work..."

"The badge and the uniform make a big difference. Symbols of authority, and all that. And you're not usually busy being arm candy."

Judy laughed through her tears, but said, "It's not right. You deserve better."

Nick shrugged again, looking forlorn. "I guess. I dunno. I did a lot to earn it, before I met you. I don't know if I'm the sort of mammal who _doesn't_ deserve it."

"Ohhh, Nick..." she said, and wrapped him in a tight hug. "That's not true. You're so much more than that. You're a _good_ fox. A good _mammal_."

Judy's words cut right to Nick's heart. He certainly didn't think that highly of himself; to hear Judy - the mammal whose opinion he valued most - say it brought him almost instantly to tears. He started to cry, and put his arms around her, wanting to feel her closer. She reached up her paws to cup his muzzle and try and comfort him. "You are a good mammal, Nicholas Wilde. I know it."

"Really?" he asked, between sobs.

"Really," she said, stroking his jaw. She leaned up onto her tip toes and gave him a salty, wet kiss, then moved her paws back to holding him while he cried himself out.

Before too long, Nick took a step back, letting go of Judy. He sniffed hard a few times, fighting away the tears, and let out a whooshing sigh, trying to get his emotions under control.

Judy smiled wistfully at him as he brought himself back to equilibrium - or at least the appearance of it.

"Nobody's ever told me anything like that before," he said.

"It's the truth," she said. Nick again offered her his elbow, which she took in paw, pulling him close as they resumed walking towards to the Zindian restaurant.

"So that's something that's just going to... happen?" Judy asked him.

"Yeah, probably... I mean, it's not like I've been in this exact situation before, but there are plenty of asshole mammals out there who are all too happy to tell me how they feel about my species."

Judy sighed. "I don't think I really understood just how bad things still were."

"Can we talk about it over lunch?"

"Ok," she said, and they walked in companionable silence for a considerable distance before Nick asked: "...'My fox'?"

"...oh cheese and crackers."

* * *

A/N P.S. - Special thank you to my editors, Fairlane302 and Azdgari.

...what's that, dear reader? The characters in my story have oddly familiar taste in music? Do you think your humble author would be so forward as to inject his own taste into the story? Why, I nev— ok you caught me. Sorry.

Hi there, Bluelighthouse.


	8. Chapter 8

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - Woo, breaking 20k! Much more to come, too. Music suggestions are {in braces}, and can all be found on youtube by searching them. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

use a period rather than a space.

A/N 2 (edits) - I don't usually go into meta story discussion in my notes, but there's something I wanted to mention: there's some discussion in this chapter of fox vs. bunny mating habits which coincidentally are similar to some common but obnoxious zootopia fic memes - which is not my goal. The source for what I'm doing is real-world biology, not an attempt to color a species as "all bunnies are sluts" so it fits my narrative. Anyway, please enjoy.

* * *

{The Beatles - I've Just Seen A Face}

Judy and Nick walked arm in arm down Baobob Street, making their way from Savannah Central towards Vine Country in the Rainforest District. The Zindian restaurant Judy had chosen for lunch was located on a bridge over one of the many falls in the Little Amazoon River, straddling the borough borderline in the middle of the river.

Nick was almost paying more attention to the blush on Judy's muzzle and ears than he was to watching where he was going. She couldn't seem to manage meeting his eyes, which gave Nick the most delightful tremble of laughter in his empty stomach.

"You know, it isn't that big a deal," Nick said.

Judy cleared her throat and said loudly, "I really love a nice spring day."

She was so very adorable when she was embarrassed - Judy was always such a sure and direct person, so to see her so distressed from a mere slip of the tongue was fascinating. Nick pulled her a little closer against his side, and was rewarded by seeing her ears flare a deeper shade of red.

"It's ok, fluff. It was sweet. Even if it was a bit hypocritical, considering how mad you got at me this morning."

"Could we just forget about it?"

"No way. I like knowing how possessive your subconscious is."

Judy made a put-upon groan, and Nick smiled down at her.

Soon, the street ran onto the wide bridge over the Little Amazoon where Baobab turned into Kinabalu Avenue. The bridge was dotted with small shops and restaurants off on the edge of the roadway, and Srinigar Gardens sat in the middle of the span on the western side. Half overgrown in jungle greenery and overlooking the falls, the restaurant marked the transition point between the two very different climates held in artificially close proximity.

As they reached the restaurant, Nick pulled open the entrance door and held it for Judy to enter first. She walked into a scene out of a Samule Coleridge poem:

{Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan - Evening Raga}

The ceiling was draped with waves of brightly colored silk, hanging low over the cushions and low tables where diners sat on the floor to eat. Plants and creeping ivy were everywhere, and chandeliers hid above the silk, flinging sparkling rays of rainbow-refracted light through gaps in the sheets of fabric. The back wall of the building was made completely of wooden framed windows that opened to a view of the top of the falls, the river, and the city on either side. The air carried the scent of chai tea, nag champa, naan bread, and spicy curry. It was a South Azian dreamscape brought to life.

A tigress in a technicolor sari greeted Judy (who was staring in delight around the restaurant) with a bow and a heavy Hindi accent: "Namaste. Will you be joining us for your meal or taking it away?"

"Dining in, please," Judy said, her blush finally fading.

"Follow me."

Nick fell in line behind Judy, paws in pockets, ambling along behind the hostess who seated them near the wall of windows under an azure billow of silk.

The bright blue bindi on the forehead of the hostess contrasted strongly with her banded orange fur as she leaned over the table and asked for their drink orders. Judy asked for chai, the scent in the air too tantalizing to ignore. Nick merely wanted water.

Leaving behind menus, the tigress walked away to fulfill their requests. The pair were left alone staring at each other across the low table. Nick stared at her in adoration, a low burning fire in his eyes as he studied her ears (reddened in embarrassment), her amethyst eyes (meeting his for a moment before the pupils dilated and she looked away), her paws (restless, kneading, holding herself and flitting like scared birds), the curve of her neck... she was a wonder to behold.

Nick was looking at her with an appreciation so intense Judy was having trouble meeting his eyes. If she looked too long, she could feel the start of a quivering excitement deep within herself that was a little frightening in its strength, and was forced to break eye contact.

Nick let the silence drag out for a few minutes, enjoying Judy's apparent inability to focus. Eventually, though, he spoke up:

"Sooo... we were going to talk about... 'us?'"

Judy's ears oriented on him as soon as he started speaking, and she nodded emphatically in agreement.

"Well. What do you want 'us' to mean?"

Judy sighed, cupping her chin in her paw, and looked away. The silence stretched for a good 20 seconds before Nick interrupted:

"This might be a little easier if both of the participants in the conversation were talking," he said.

Judy turned to face him and exclaimed, "I know, I know! I was trying to figure out what I should say."

"A.k.a. you don't know."

"...Yeah... basically."

Nick woofed out a breath, and re-positioned himself so that he was lounging sideways across the cushions, elbow down and head resting against his open paw.

"That makes two of us."

She looked down at his relaxed pose. The tight black t-shirt he wore showed off his musculature, and contrasted against his russet and cream fur, fading to black at his paws, ears, and tail. He was... beautiful. Built for lean strength and clever hunting. Such clever things he could surely come up with to do to her. Judy's eyes met his, and though a flush started to creep up her muzzle, she forced herself to hold his stare. The bright green of Nick's eyes seemed to devour her world until there was little else she could see, pulling her into a free fall down a burrow hole with no handholds, no way to stop or slow her fall - only the long dive into the promising chaos of warmth she could see there.

Nick, looking back, could feel a space of complete faith, a promise that he would find a safe harbor where for so very, very long he had known only a storm tossed sea and a small boat kept afloat in it. It was an intense experience interrupted only by the arrival of their tigress waitress with their drinks. Both Nick and Judy emerged from their locked-eye trance with a slight shake.

"Have you decided what you would like to have this afternoon?" she asked.

Nick glanced bashfully up at her, and said, "You know, I'm sorry, but I've completely forgotten to look at the menu."

The tigress smiled, and said "I'll give you a both a few minutes," as she walked away.

"Well that was kinda weird," Nick said.

"She was just doing her job."

"I... wasn't talking about her."

Judy glanced up at him from the menu she'd opened up to look through, then went back to picking her late lunch with a sip of her chai tea, her slightly cockeyed ears tingeing red.

Nick yanked his menu off the table and took a look. Though he was more often a little more... tactful when he ate with Judy, he felt an irresistible urge for some real meat for his first meal in hours - and the menu had some poultry options.

"So..." Judy said.

"So...?"

"So. Us."

"'Us?'"

Judy blew out a sigh. "Nick."

"Nick?"

Judy glanced up at his smarmy smirk and rolled her eyes. "C'mon."

"C'mon?"

Upon seeing the growing irritation in Judy's expression, Nick decided he'd needled her enough. "Right. Um. Us. I... don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"I don't know what 'us' should mean."

"Well... what do you know?"

"I know I like you, Judy. A lot. In a lot of ways."

She smiled at that, looking like someone had just told her they had a carrot cake with her name on it.

"Wow. Thanks, Nick."

He looked a little taken aback at her response.

"Just a 'Thanks?' That all?"

Judy realized her error a moment too late, and reaching a paw up to scratch her head, said "Oh, geez. Um." She paused. "Nick, this is all very new to me."

His expression darkened. "Uh-huh. New to you. Stuffing a paw-foot in your mouth certainly isn't."

With a desperate look in her eyes, Judy said to him "I am so bad at this. I'm sorry." She paused, her ears drooping as she cradled her muzzle, her paws over her eyes. "I... think I like you, Nick. You absolutely mean the world to me. Your companionship, the place you have in my life, is something I do not want to lose. And I'm not going to make some excuse about avoiding anything to 'save a friendship.'" She looked up, into his eyes again. "I want to explore this. I don't know what it is or will be, but I... I want find out."

"You... don't know if you like me?"

"I know I... something you. You're my best friend, someone I depend on, who is important to me. And just, you know, like, hours ago, someone I found out I'm interested in other ways, too. But I don't know if I could name what that's all supposed to add up to."

Nick smiled sweetly at her. "Which is funny, because I can: you like me."

"This sounds remarkably similar to a conversation I had this morning." One which turned out to be oddly prescient, she thought.

"It does?"

"Nevermind. I guess I can call it that," she said. "I like you." She rolled the words around in her mouth, trying to decide if they made her happy. "I... like you. I like you, Nick." They did.

They made Nick even happier.

"So... 'us.'"

"Yeah," she said.

"Is this... a date? Are we dating?"

Judy looked troubled as she said "Dating...? This... isn't like any dating I've done before."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... rabbits... when we... date, it's usually through our families."

"You mean like, arranged marriages?"

"No, not really. More like, a matchmaker. When you're trying to find a life-mate - someone to bond with - sometimes an outside perspective is helpful. See... we can't really trust... y'know, lust and hormones and physical stuff. It's too easy to confuse lust with attraction, since our biology is kind of... wired for it. We're good at multiplication, heh. Like, doe's don't even have a season to be in heat. We're kind of always in heat, sort of - as soon as there's compatible mate expressing interest, our biology responds to it - it doesn't matter what time of year it is. It's very easy to misread that - to misunderstand that your body is just responding to something instinctual, without your brain having any input - and end up thinking that just because you want to _be_ with someone, you're somehow a good match in any other way. And once a bunny finds a physically compatible mate... well, things can sort of... spiral out of control. If you've convinced yourself that just because your body wants a buck, it's a good idea to stay with them... I mean, a bunny can get pregnant again _while_ she's already pregnant! It's too easy to let our sex drive make the decisions, since it's so powerful. Physical stuff just isn't that reliable at finding good, long term mates to bond with. To really find out if you're compatible with someone, you have to go way slower. I've heard of some families where a couple won't even meet for the first month or so."

This was all new to Nick. Judy had always been open enough - about herself, at least, but rabbit mating habits and courtship had been far away from both their minds until today.

At this point their waitress returned. Judy ordered Aloo Tamatar Ka Jhol, and made a slightly disgusted face when Nick ordered Mughlai Chicken. Judy knew he ate meat, and it didn't bother her that much - but she still couldn't fathom the appeal of it.

"Have you never had a... serious relationship?" he asked.

"I guess? I tried a couple of times, but I was always too busy trying to become a police officer. Which made me much less appealing in their eyes. Nobody really worth bonding with, let alone becoming life-mates."

"Huh."

"I mean, I've had a handful of one night stands, too, but nothing that really lasted."

"...And those are... um... ok in bunny culture?"

"You... did hear what I said about our physical urges? They're practically unavoidable."

Nick looked extremely apprehensive to hear this.

"Nick... does that bother you?"

"No! I mean, yes, but not for why you'd think it does..." he trailed off.

"You've got to give a girl more than that, Nick."

Pushing himself back to vertical, Nick said sheepishly, "I don't care how many mammals you've been with. Or how. I just... you've absolutely got more experience than I do. I feel a little... behind, I guess."

"It's not a competition."

"I don't think it is. There's just a... bit of a gulf, you know?"

Judy's eyes widened considerably. "Nick... are you a virgin?"

Beneath the white fuzz, Nick's ears steadily pinkened as he stammered out, "I mean, I've done stuff with girlfriends before. A-And they always said they were satisfied and that I made them happy, so uh... um..."

Judy was delighted to see him this off balance, as it happened so rarely. She smiled, mirth dancing in her amethyst eyes, and said "Oh my gosh. You are, aren't you?"

He let out a defeated sigh. "...Pinecone?"

"No way, Slick."

"Gaahhhh! C'mon, Judy."

"Out with it. It's for your own good!"

Nick huffed, clearly upset, but trying to push his ingrained emotional response back. "Ok, ok. You know foxes are monogamous, right?"

She nodded. "Don't foxes mate for life, like bonding?"

"Wellll... Not all of us, and it's not really a... choice, like the way you described bunnies doing. It's a genetic quirk that... pops up sometimes. It's not something you can really tell in advance of... y'know, actually mating. You become sort of... biologically addicted to your mate. Kind of. I know it's an instinctual thing. From what I understand, it becomes almost impossible to mate with or form an attraction to anyone else after you've bonded with a mammal. I've met some foxes who found out by having it happen way before they were ready, or with partners who didn't bond in return and then left them. It... wasn't pretty. I've also met a few who got involved with other mates, later, but it was a fight against their own physiology." He paused, and sighed. "I'm still not sure if I'm one of those 'lucky' tods. I've... never been in a position where it seemed like a good idea to find out."

Judy looked a little ashamed. "That makes a lot of sense, actually. It's really not that weird. Or important. I'm just used to bunnies, I guess - I didn't know anyone my age who was still a virgin by the time I was 20."

"Woah."

She laughed. "Yeah, I guess so, huh?"

There was a lull as they both fiddled with their respective drinks.

"So..." Judy said, "How does fox courtship work?"

Nick tilted his head and looked up at the waves of silk. "You know, now that I think about it, it's... kinda haphazard, compared to what you're used to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... it sounds like rabbit courtship is very structured, right?" She nodded, and Nick continued, "We don't have that sort of tradition, or that strong a community. I think there's a couple of dating websites that let foxes on, but we're pretty solitary creatures on the whole. There's not a big network or anything - you just hope you run into the right mammal. I think it relies a lot more on pheromones, really. My mom would always say I'd know when I'd found the right vixen when she smelled like I was discovering a home I didn't know I had. Starting something is more common in winter, when vixens have their heat cycle. Other than that... it's just a lot of spending time together, and maybe bonding down the line." He paused again. "There is some tradition wrapped up in life-mating, but that doesn't happen until... after the event."

"That is kinda fast and loose. I guess foxes just have... low sex drives?" she probed.

Nick chuckled, sensing her unspoken worry. "Not exactly. Tods basically respond to vixens, who have heat cycles, so we're... more interested when they're ready. But it's not like I don't have... urges. Especially in winter."

"Huh," Judy said, a voice in the back of her head wondering how he'd respond to her. "Do I… have a nice scent?"

Nick smiled at her. " _I_ think so."

She blushed, then went back to fiddling with her cup of chai.

"So..."

"So... what?" she asked.

"You know. 'Us.' We never came to an answer."

"I don't know. This isn't really anything like what I know."

"About that," Nick said. "Didn't we sort of have a year of the 'take it slow' part of bunny dating already?"

Judy looked up at him with a thoughtful expression. "I guess we did, kind of. Although usually you spend that time finding out about each other, and I feel like I'm a little behind in that aspect. We're definitely compatible, personality wise, though." She chuckled. "We're probably pretty close to the 'find out if you're physically compatible' part."

"Heh. Heheh. Um. I'm not so sure about that."

She frowned as she thought of exactly how much that could entail for Nick without affecting her at all.

"Right. Sorry."

Nick cleared his throat, then said "Anyway. I guess we're dating, by bunny standards, at least. Kinda by fox standards, too."

"I guess we are." She smiled up at him. "I'm dating a fox. A really handsome one, too."

"Really more, 'going to date' than 'dating.' But yeah. And thanks, beautiful bunny."

{Seven Mary Three - Cumbersome}

Their waitress arrived with their meals - both curry stews, Nick's a creamy gold and Judy's a deep orange. There was a bowl of rice for them and a platter of naan for them to share. Nick eagerly spooned rice onto his plate, and covered it with curry and chicken. He was taking his first bite when Judy, who was tearing up naan to dip into her stew, spoke up:

"Ick."

"Donf knog id iv you haven tried it," Nick said through a mouthful of Zindian food.

"No thanks. I know you need it, but I don't, and it smells…" Judy leaned forward and sniffed at the metal bowl his curry had come in. Her eyes went wide in surprise. "Well, it smells pretty amazing, actually."

"Good, energy dense stuff, meat. Lots of protein. Tasty, too."

"Tasty murder, you mean."

Nick shrugged. "You ever try talking to a chicken?"

"I get your point. They're not sentient. Still, I don't have to kill anything to eat, and I'm happy to keep it that way."

"Maybe you just can't hear the carrots screaming."

Judy laughed. "My family, the carrot murderers."

Latching onto the joke, Nick said, "The Hopps clan. They tear you from your home and subject you to torture, just for their gastronomic pleasure. The Burrows Have Eyes!"

Judy cracked up completely. "Hah - my dad, haha - th-heh, the-haha, the serial killer!"

The mirth on Nick's muzzle sank away faster than a submarine with screen door as Judy belly laughed, slapping the table top.

"Oh, no, Judy. Your family."

Judy's laughter trickled off as she saw his expression.

"Nick… you've talked to them on muzzle time! They know who you are. You know them."

"Sure, for like, 30 seconds here or there. 'I'm your daughter's coworker' is a big, biiiiiig step away from 'I'm trying to play hide the carrot with her.'"

"Don't worry, Nick. It'll be fine."

He gave her a very skeptical look.

"I think."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I hope."

Nick gestured, his paw open and facing up, for her to continue.

Judy looked away. "...I hope my dad doesn't kill us both."

"Aaaand there's the answer I was expecting."

She sighed, her ears tilted back. "We'll... figure out what to do about my family when we have to. They're not here right now. So enjoy your bowl of murder, you blood-crazed predator."

"Sure you don't want some?"

"...Pass."

They both tucked into their food, Nick ravenously finishing his, Judy needing a takeout container for the rather large portion she couldn't finish in one sitting. Judy insisted on splitting the check, and after they paid, they stood outside, facing each other.

"I know you said you have plans tonight - cancel em'. I want to take you on a real date." Nick said.

"Nick… I don't want to break a promise."

"C'mon. You said I owe you an amazing night, and I don't like being in debt."

Judy sized him up. "You really think you can amaze me with," she glanced at her phone (4:30pm), "two hours and change to plan a whole night?"

"I don't think it. I know it."

"Hah! Well, alright then."

"Great! I've got to get home and prepare," he said, flagging down a cab. "7pm. I'll pick you up. Wear something nice!"

"Sounds good."

As Nick was pulling open the cab door, he found himself wrapped in a bunny hug from behind. He turned inside her arms to hold her in return, and planted a kiss on her head, smelling the vestiges of his scent mark intermingled with her pheromones.

"Hey, fluff. I'll see you again in just a few hours."

She squeezed him tighter, then let go, looking up into his eyes, her ears perky and her nose wiggling.

"I'm looking forward to it!"

He gave her a genuine, pointy-toothed grin, and then hopped into the cab, which u-turned back towards Savannah Central.

Judy started walking back to her apartment, but barely made it off the bridge before something terrible occurred to her:

She didn't own a dress.

* * *

A/N - Special thanks, again, to Azdgari and Fairlane302 for their editing and advice. The particular Indian song I picked for this chapter is the Hem Bihag raga, off of a 1972 live concert album by Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. The dishes Nick and Judy order are real, too!


	9. Chapter 9

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - Currently looking for an artist who might be interested in drawing up a cover image for the story. Interested parties please send me a message! Again, feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Hushpuppies - You're Gonna Say Yeah!}

Nick Wilde sat in the back of his cab, ticking digits down as he went down the mental list of everything he needed get done within two hours.

'Gotta pick up the car… need to pick a place to eat at… pick a movie? Nah, dinner and a movie is too cliche. Cocktails…? Yeah, fancy cocktails. I know exactly where… maybe then the orchestra. Yeah, classical music! Perfect. Well… what time do they…'

Nick dug out his phone and checked the Zootopia Symphony Orchestra calendar. There was a late seating that night, starting at 9pm, which gave him enough time to fit in dinner first, and plenty for cocktails after. He hit the 'Purchase Tickets' button, then a digit print for payment. He immediately flipped over to Boarsquare, looking for a good place to go to dinner, when he was hit with a bolt of inspiration; the muzzle of a Zapanese otter Nick had become friendly with years ago appeared in his mind's eye. He pulled up the number on his phone and made a call.

"Konichi wa, Ono-san. It's Nick Wilde. Hi, hi, hehe. Yeah, it's been a few years. How are you and your Otō-san? Good, good, that's great, happy to hear it! I'm doing well, thank you. Huh? Oh, I know, I miss being there, but life moves on, you know? I'm actually a police officer now! ...Hah, I know, right?"

Nick listened to the other end of the line.

"Well, I'm sorry to say I'm calling you after so long so I can ask for a huuuge favor. Is there any chance - any at all - you could sneak me and a guest into a dinner seating tonight? Around 7:30? ...What? Closed for a private event?! Really? On a Saturday? Who on earth could get you to do _that_?"

Nick paused again.

"...C'mon, Yoshi, it's me. I can keep a secret! So, who is it? What?! No _way_! You're kidding me! Really?! Wow. Ok, well how about this: if I can get in, can you serve me and a guest? I'll pay either way, I just want to check you have enough stock to serve two more. Really?! Wow, man, thank you! I owe you one. Huh? Oh, she's a herbivore. Bunny, actually. She might try some other stuff, though. ...Hey, you know me. If anyone could talk their way in, it'd be Nick Wilde, the fox with a golden tongue. Har har, thanks for the vote of confidence, Ono-san. I'll see you soon, ok? Sayonara!"

Nick hung up and called the bar he was hoping for next, and was able to reserve a couple seats after the show. By the time he'd finished cajoling the female on the other end of the line to do that for him at a walk-in only bar, the cab had arrived at his building. Nick hurried into his apartment block, climbing up the stairs two at a time to get to his door. Fumbling with his keys, he finally unlocked the door, yanked it open, and stormed into his bedroom to pick out his outfit.

* * *

Walking back towards her apartment, Judy fretted about her complete lack of anything approaching formal wear.

"Something nice…" she said to herself, "Why did he have to say that? I don't have _anything_ to wear that would count as 'nice,' and I don't even know where to _start_."

Judy had made it back to the park when, with the suddenness of being hit on the head by a falling anvil, she realized that even though _she_ had no interest in fashion whatsoever, she had a friend who absolutely did: Fru Fru Big. Fru might have been kind of Tundra Shores - big hair, garish leggings, and predator print everywhere - but she totally knew how to dress to the nines when the occasion called for it. Judy pulled out her phone and dialed up her arctic shrew friend.

"Hello?" Fru Fru's heavily accented voice squeaked out of the phone.

"Oh, Fru Fru, thank god, I have a fashion _emergency_ , and you're the only one that can help."

"Judy! What's going on?"

"I have a… date tonight, and I don't have anything to wear."

"What about those cute jeans you wore last week when we had a coffee together? They show off your hips! Whatever lucky buck finally talked you into a date won't be able to resist!"

"I wish. I've got to wear something… fancy. And Nick is the one taking me out."

"Nicky? Awwww, it's about time! He's such a sweetie. He's always so nice to me!"

"Wha- about time?!"

"You called the right shrew, Judy! Where are you right now?"

"Um, Baobab and Grass Street? In Savanna Central?"

"Stay right where you are! I'll be there in 20 minutes."

Judy glanced down at her phone, noting that it was not quite 5pm.

"Ok, but I've got to be home by 7, ok?"

"I promise everything is gonna be just fine! Don't worry about a thing."

Judy laughed. "Okay, Fru. See you soon."

Not even 15 minutes later, a massive white limousine pulled up to the curb directly in front of Judy. The rear door opened, and a polar bear stepped out, pivoted, and held the door for her.

"Hi, Kevin. Good to see you again!"

The bear grunted, but did not otherwise react.

Judy stepped up into the back of the chilly limo, and found Fru Fru in a rodent sized seat on a small platform mounted to the drivers' side wall, along with a second bear sitting with his back to the driver. Kevin stepped back inside, sat next to Judy, and closed the door. The limo immediately sped off, the acceleration pressing Judy back into the seat.

"Judy! I'm so happy that I finally get to go shopping with you!"

With a smile, Judy said, "But we go shopping all the time, don't we?"

"Oh no we don't, you only tag along and window shop while I buy things for myself!"

"Heh, I guess that's true."

"So we gotta get you all dolled up, huh? This is going to be fun, bunny fashion is popular with all the big designers right now."

"If you say so, Fru. I wouldn't know."

Fru Fru leaned forward in her seat, examining Judy from minutely closer, and said with a toothy grin, "Ohhh, I know _exactly_ what you need."

"Oh no." Judy said, each word dripping with dread.

Fru Fru waved a tiny paw dismissively. "Don't be like that - you asked for help, so I'm helping. You need what every girl needs: a little black dress."

Judy might not know much about fashion, but even she had heard of 'the little black dress' before.

Sitting back, Fru Fru set her long muzzle on a paw and said, "Well… we don't have time to get one made, or even tailored, so it'll have to be off the rack. And I'll just bet you can never find pants that fit, can you?"

"Wha?- I mean, no, but what does have to with anything?"

"Your shape, silly! Your waist to hip ratio is super high, and a dress has got to fit allll of you, not just your legs. You'll have to try some things on, but I think I know what should work without a tailor. Rolling Hills Mall should be perfect!"

{Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood}

The car arrived at the Mall at about 5:30, and the bodyguards and their charges piled out and into the massive building, Fru Fru in Kevin's open paws. She immediately urged them to The Gup, which unfortunately only had a few shirts for rabbits, and then to Hornstroms. Judy tried a couple of dresses there, but everything was too sheathy and either fit her hips or her torso - but not both. Fru Fru had been right - it looked like a dress was going to be even harder to find than decent jeans.

On their third store - Neiman Barkus - they finally found the right dress: an Alexander MuskQueen that hugged Judy's waist and bust, but which had a loose enough skirt to fit over her hips, although the hem line rode about two thirds down her thighs instead of at her knees like it was supposed to. The hem and the off-the-shoulder neckline had a playful scalloped edge, and the whole design was exactly the right combination of quirky and sexy to suit Judy's personality. Fru Fru had exclaimed "We'll take it, leave it on!" to the lupine clerk as soon as Judy stepped out of the dressing room - before she even got a look at herself in it! The clerk quickly removed the tag so Judy could wear it out.

Fru Fru had insisted that she needed paw-foot wraps, a clutch purse, jewelry, and makeup to go with the dress - Judy balked, worried about time, but Fru Fru in a shopping frenzy was an irresistible force. Within 10 minutes Judy found herself in a makeup chair having some gentle eyeshadow applied, wearing a simple silver necklace with an onyx pendant, and moving her belongings from the zip pockets in her running leggings to her brand new black rectangular clutch purse. The makeup artist finished up quickly, and offered to finish the sale for them. Judy agreed, and was digging out her debit card when she saw the total pop up on the register's customer display: well over $1,000.

"Sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy was suddenly very, very glad she wasn't interested in fashion, and immediately regretted asking Fru Fru - a girl with expensive taste if there ever was one - to help her. She could afford it all, but things were going to be very tight for the next couple months, and she'd run out of time to figure out anything else - it was already 6:30.

Fru Fru, who had been chatting with a mouse makeup salesman, looked up at Judy's exclamation: "Oh, look at me, forgetting why I was here! I'm so sorry, Judy - Ma'am, please charge that to my card, thank you!"

With nothing more than a nod, the female wolf accepted the credit card Raymond was holding out and swiped it. The register spat out a receipt, which Raymond took in paw with the card.

"Fru, I can't let you do that!"

"But I want to! And Daddy's very fond of you, Judy. He'd be happy - especially as a mammal who started in fashion - to get you dressed up so pretty. Nicky isn't going to know what hit him!"

"Fru… I'm a police officer… I can't… the Big family can't just buy things for me!"

"Oh, stop! You're my friend and I want to do something nice for you. It's a gift, no strings attached, not a favor. It's _my_ money and this is how _I_ want to spend it. Now stop arguing with me over your beautiful dress, and let's get you back to your apartment, ok?"

Judy sighed, accepting the inevitable. With no tags and no receipts, she'd never be able to just return everything. Hopefully nobody in Internal Affairs or Chief Bogo caught wind of it - she and Nick had already had to sit through a very long lecture for just being friends with the Big family, and I.A. had whichever intern was presently the newest on a rotating assignment digging through Nick's patchy history. He'd had to jump through more than a few hoops in his background check. The last thing either of them needed was for news that she had accepted a gift from a mob family to catch any attention.

"Alright, Fru," Judy said in resignation, "Let's go."

Fru Fru could tell how much her generosity had upset Judy, and as they were walking back toward the entrance of the mall, she spoke up: "Judy, don't be so sad - I promise it's going to be just fine. Everyone who sees you in that is going to be far too busy admiring you to wonder where it came from!"

Catching a look at her reflection in a display window, Judy was forced to agree - she looked like a completely different bunny; a very pretty one who was dressed to impress, and held herself with confidence. Her unfamiliar appearance was a little shocking, but slowly a big smile grew on her muzzle. She looked _amazing_. Even if this did somehow end up causing trouble, seeing herself dressed up like this for the first time might just be worth it.

Fru Fru spotted Judy's grin, and with a delighted squeak, threw her paws up to her muzzle. "See?! Now let's get you home!"

The limousine arrived at Judy's building with just few minutes to spare - enough time for Judy thank Fru Fru profusely, and run the bag with her old clothes in it up to her room. She'd just gotten back outside when she heard a curious noise: it started with a deep growl, echoing off the nearby tall buildings but quickly grew to a ripsaw scream at the top.

[tinyurl com/y77t39r5]

The sound peaked as deep silver, medium mammal sized car turned onto her block. It was small, extremely boxy, and very 1980's with four headlights set in a black grill that spanned the front of the car, with two silver squares in the center. The wheels were pushed out in squared fender flares, and a black antenna stood up from the roof. It was painted a liquid, pewter silver, almost the color of a stormy sky, and had two off center white racing stripes; the car practically shone, the finish mirror-like. The blocky but elegant sports coupe stopped right in front of Judy's building.

Judy may have enjoyed driving, but she wasn't a car mammal by any means. Despite that, even she could tell that this car was something special. Then the driver door opened and Nick stepped out.

* * *

{Philip Bailey - Easy Lover}

Nick opened the car door, and stepped out to scan the sidewalk in front of Judy's building. He was sure he was on time, but the only mammal he saw was a knockout, dressed-to-the-nines bunny that looked like she'd missed her ride to a runway show standing in front of the building entrance - Judy was nowhere to be found.

Then, the lapin pin-up girl waved at him, and Nick realized he didn't need to go looking for Judy at all. His jaws fell open.

"...Woah."

"Hey there, Slick. Give a girl a ride?"

Nick was still taking her all in - the black dress showing off her legs, her shoulders, her hips, her… all of her; the shiny wedge foot wraps, the necklace resting in the hollow of her throat… Judy walked up to him, a smirk on her muzzle.

"...Nick?"

"Abuh… hawuh… uh. Wow. You look incredible, Judy."

She giggled, batting her eyes at him. "You look pretty good yourself, Slick."

Nick was wearing a white dress shirt open at the collar, no tie, black slacks, a black sportcoat, and sunglasses up on his forehead. He ran around the car to open the passenger door for Judy, and closed it behind her once she got in.

The interior was black and dark grey except for little splashes of color in the form of red seat belts and a small angled triplet of orange/purple/sky blue stripes that appeared in a few places, like the steering wheel and the shift knob. It was just as boxy as the outside, and very spartan. Nick ran around the car and got back into the driver's seat. He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb with a dull roar.

Judy looked around the interior, noting the immaculate condition of… the entire car, really. Nick smoothly clutched and shifted the canine-leg gearbox, a slight smile on his face.

"So this is your special occasions car? What is it?"

Nick laughed, then said, "It's a 1990 BMW M3."

"Ok, I know BMW's are fancy..."

"Right. Well, M3's are the sportiest, nicest version of BMW's small car - and this generation's practically a racecar. They only made them for regular people to buy because the racing series they wanted to run in had a production number requirement."

"It doesn't _feel_ like a racecar."

Nick smirked, down shifted and pinned the throttle. Judy gave a shout of surprise as the tires chirped and she was _thrown_ back into her seat, the engine screaming. Nick let off the gas almost immediately, and Judy laid a paw on her chest, the fading adrenaline spike making her digits tingle.

"Alright alright! Totally a racecar," she said, and looked up to see Nick grinning like a little kit. His car was really quite a bit like it's owner: docile at first impression, but faster than it seemed and aggressive when needed; elegant, but not showy… it was understated. Exactly how Nick liked to come across - smooth but not arrogant.

"So… was this thing expensive?"

"Well, they're _valuable_ \- probably worth something like $75,000, a lot more than when it was new. But I got mine for free, so-"

"You got a $75,000 racecar for free?!"

"Hah, no way! Nobody cared about these things for years; they just started getting super pricey recently. I ended up with mine about 10 years ago - way before prices skyrocketed. I was managing a liquor importing business for this coyote, and I found out he'd been embezzling from it the whole time. The business folded because of that and he skipped town, and he gave me this as some sort of apology. It was old and pretty beat up, but he'd started restoring it… which meant that my 'apology' was a car in pieces with its engine on a stand. I did the rest of the work over the years, when I had the time and money for it."

Nick glanced over at her, again blown away by how nice Judy looked dressed up. "Enough about my boring car. I've never seen that dress on you before. It's gorgeous!"

Judy sighed, and leaned up against the deep seat bolster. "Neither had I, an hour ago."

"Fru Fru?" Nick asked her, rather perceptively.

"Fru Fru," she confirmed.

They fell silent for a minute, the quiet only broken by the buzz of the exhaust and the whisper of the air vents. Then Nick said, "So… I know this is supposed to be a 'get to know each other' date, but I have a feeling you might be a bit too, um, distracted over dinner to do much of that."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It's a surprise!"

Judy sighed. "Can I at least ask you some more questions for now?"

"Hey, I'm an open book."

Judy scoffed.

"What?"

"So… how do you feel about kits?"

Nick froze for the briefest of moments, his eyes popping wide open. He recovered quickly and said, "Um. I like kits. You know I like going to schools and stuff when we do outreach."

"You _know_ that's not what I meant, Slick."

Nick sighed, apprehension clear in his expression. "I've never really been in a place before where I could consider having my own kits. And I don't know what kind of father I'd ever be." His face fell as he finished.

Judy reached over and tugged his right paw across the car and into her lap, curling both her paws around his larger one.

"You'd be an amazing Dad, Nick. I know it."

He looked down at her, meeting her eyes for a moment as she smiled reassuringly up at him. Nick held her eyes for a second before looking back to the road and conspicuously clearing his throat.

"What about you, Hopps?"

"It'd be all my Mom could ever want." She laughed. "I don't know, I'm too busy having a career right now. Probably some day, when I have more time for it."

Nick took his paw back to shift gears, and then moved it back to Judy's lap, where she clasped it again.

"So… you do want kits. Eventually," Nick confirmed.

"Yup. And you…?"

"I don't know. I've never really thought about it. Maybe someday." He was quiet for moment before saying, "We'd have to adopt, wouldn't we?"

Judy wasn't sure how to respond to that. She'd met a couple of coyo-wolfs and a liger before, but that was a far cry from a rabbit and a fox having offspring. And…

"Wait wait. Aren't _you_ presuming something in saying that!"

"You asked first, beautiful bunny."

"Oops."

Nick laughed, pulling his paw back to the shift knob. "Well, we're here!"

Judy looked around as Nick parallel parked, noticing a complete lack of restaurants a mammal would want to dress up for. Nick turned off the car, set the hand brake and put it in gear, and then got out to open the passenger door for Judy.

Judy continued to look around as Nick locked his car, and then took his elbow as he started walking in the direction of the subway entrance he had parked in front of. She slowed considerably and had to be tugged forward as she realized Nick was walking directly into the station.

"Very funny, Nick."

"What's funny?"

"...You took all this time to go get your car and drive me to the middle of Downtown... so we could go to a _subway station_."

"We're not going to a subway station," he said, starting down the stairs labeled 'Peak Street Subway Station.'

"Could've fooled me."

Considering they were on Alpine Avenue, a couple of blocks away from Peak Street, the signage made about as much sense as Nick bothering to drive her to the subway. Peak Street was the station that served the densest high-rise buildings in the core of downtown - Judy had been through it plenty of times for work, but she'd never noticed this entrance. Nick descended a second set of stairs, then led Judy around a corner to a hallway she'd never been in before, though she could hear the trains in the distance. To the right side of the hall was a very traditional wooden Zapanese doorway hung with a navy blue noren.

Standing _outside_ of the door was a tiger in a suit with an earpiece wire running down his neck. He was in conversation with a raccoon, who was dressed similarly to Nick. As Nick and Judy walked closer to the door, Nick waved, and the two mammals blocking the doorway paused their conversation. The raccoon said, "I'm sorry, sir, madam, but the restaurant is closed for tonight."

{Darren Korb - Dirty Deal}

Judy looked up at Nick in surprise and indignation.

"Oh, I know, I know," Nick said. "That's what Ono-san - the chef - told me earlier, when I called his cell phone, but here we are!" He gave a sly grin to the raccoon.

"...So you already knew it was completely reserved, and you came anyway?" the raccoon asked.

"Look… any other night Ono-san would have been happy to seat me, really. The problem is that it really _can't_ be any other night," Nick said, gesturing towards Judy. "I've got a lady who's in desperate need of an amazing night _tonight_."

The raccoon started to object, but Nick simply talked over him: "C'mon now, the Chef is fine with it, I'll pay for our meals, it's no big deal. What's the harm if we share the bar for a meal?"

The raccoon bristled a little, and started to respond angrily, when the wooden-lattice door slid open behind him, and a Zapanese otter in a white chef's jacket and apron stepped out. "Is there a problem, Jensen-san?" he asked in heavily Zapanese accented english.

Nick waved at the otter. "Hi, Ono-san."

"Wilde-san! Hello, it's good to see you!" the otter said.

"You know this fox?" the raccoon asked.

"Oh yes," the otter said, "Nicholas was the mammal who started bringing the best fish into the city after our old importer retired. He's a good friend."

Nick rubbed his head fur, and said sheepishly "I just worked at Fishtown Market in the wholesale seafood department. He's being far too generous."

Yoshizaku Ono, the otter, smiled with a twinkle in his eye, winked at Nick, and ducked back into the restaurant, saying "I must finish preparations for the evening."

The raccoon watched him duck back into the restaurant, leaving the door open, and turned back to Nick. He folded his arms and said "I don't care if you know the owner, or what you did for him. The place is reserved that's all there is to it."

Nick knew a hard bargaining mammal when he heard one, and decided that appealing to his better nature was a futile endeavour. "Well… I mean, all I want is to have dinner here tonight at my friend's restaurant with my date, but I could also definitely, say, let a fan page and a couple of tabloids know that she's having dinner here tonight, if you'd prefer."

The raccoon blanched and the tiger started growling. "You _know_ who's here tonight?!" the raccoon asked.

Nick took his phone out of his pocket and shook it gently. "C'mon, man. It's just dinner. Better that than the mess you could have on your hands."

The tiger's growl was picking up ferocity as Nick waved his phone around.

Judy had been watching this all unfold, steadily getting more upset as she watched Nick try and talk himself into a closed seating. She was about to forcibly drag him somewhere else when she heard a very, _very_ recognizable voice from inside the restaurant.

"Rocky, what is going _on_ out there?"

The question was shortly followed out by its source, a tall gazelle with quite wide hips and curly blonde hair that fell over one of her eyes.

Not just _a_ gazelle, but _the_ Gazelle, stepped out of the restaurant. Judy's eyes blinked wide open and she let out an inadvertent squeak, vibrating against Nick's arm.

The raccoon started to answer, "This fox just showed up here, and he's-"

He was interrupted by Gazelle, who asked, eyes going wide, "That can't be Nicky? Nicky Wilde?"

The jaw of every mammal present dropped open in shock, except for Gazelle herself.

Nick recovered quickly, a spark of recognition lighting in the depths of his mind. "Isa-Isabella? Izzy?"

Gazelle smiled, let out a quick laugh, and walked right up to Nick. "It _is_ you! My god, how long has it been?"

Nick looked up at Gazelle, still in mild shock. "Um. 24 years? I think? I had no idea you'd become the Gazelle, Izzy. Holy crap."

Gazelle chuckled. "I guess moving away when you're ten has a way of making you lose contact, huh?"

"I guess. Man. Damn, Izzy. I had no idea! Wow."

At this point Judy had finally put her wits back together. "Nick… you _know Gazelle_ , and you _never told me_?!"

Gazelle smiled down at Judy. "Nicky, who's this?"

"This is Judy Hopps, my-"

"Officer Hopps! The bunny who solved the Nighthowler cases. I remember!" She reached a hoof out to shake Judy's hand, which Judy did with reverence, stars in her eyes, stunned into silence. "It's nice to meet you, Officer."

"Judy's my partner at the department, and my date tonight. Judy, meet Izzy - Isabella. We were best friends in grade school."

"Until he moved away, he means. Rocky, was Nicky making trouble for you?"

The raccoon said, "He was trying to blackmail his way into the restaurant for dinner."

Gazelle laughed. "That sounds just like him. You were not going to make trouble for me, Nicky, were you?"

"For Gazelle, maybe. Never for you, Izzy!"

With a chuckle, she responded, "Well, I think it'd be lovely to share dinner with you two. Please, join us!"

Gazelle - Isabella - still holding Judy's hand, pulled her gently away from Nick and into the restaurant, saying, "You must be a very special girl for Nicky to take you here, Judy."

"R-Really? What is this place?"

"You've never heard of Sushiya Ono? It is the most famous sushi restaurant in… probably the whole world! Impossible to get a reservation in, and very…"

Nick lost what Gazelle was saying as she and Judy walked further into the restaurant.

Rocky the Raccoon turned to Nick and said, "I guess you got your wish. You weren't really going to blackmail me, were you?"

Nick walked into the sushi bar alongside the shorter mammal, and winked down at him.

"Probably not."

* * *

A/N - thanks again to my beta-readers/editors, Azdgari and Fairlane302! You guys rock!


	10. Chapter 10

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - Within this chapter, our protagonists attend a concert, for which music will be provided. You can listen along with them! If you want to. I don't judge. Again, feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Hey Ocean - Thank You Very Much}

Nick and Gazelle's manager, a raccoon named Rocky Jensen, walked side-by-side into the most famous medium-mammal sushi bar in the world: Sushiya Ono. The bar's host, a long-limbed lynx, directed the two mammals to the stools at the bar, indicating where they should sit. Nick found himself to the right of Judy, who was in still-somewhat-starstruck conversation with Isabella, Nick's childhood friend - and, incidentally, the pop star who went by Gazelle.

"No, really, it is just a job like any other. I'm sure you've got just as many fans around the city!"

"Haha, yeah right! Nobody likes a policemammal unless they call for one."

"Judy… you don't give yourself enough credit!"

"Enjoying yourselves, ladies?" Nick interjected, a sly smirk on his muzzle. Judy leaned over and hugged him, emitting a contented sigh.

"Nicky! Your partner is wonderful! I had no idea that you'd end up with such a sweetheart of a female. Or a bunny!"

Nick's ears tinged red as he replied, "Me neither. But I don't know if 'with' is the right word..." He looked at Judy, trying to see if he'd said the right thing. She gave him little smirk, then turned to Isabella and said:

"Nick's taking me on a 'real first date' tonight, or so he claims. We'll see if he's good enough to impress me once it's over."

Nick chuckled nervously. "Aaaanyway… it's been years, Izzy! It looks like they've treated you pretty well, huh, pop-star?"

"There were a bunch of years in coffee shops and street corners you missed… but yeah, it's been pretty wonderful for a while now. How are you and your mother doing?"

Nick looked kind of abashed, as Judy looked up at him with concern in her eyes.

"I-I haven't talked to her in long time. I got in with a… not-so-good bunch of mammals, and we sort of had a falling out."

"Oh, Nicky… I'm sorry." Isabella paused, then said "You're a police officer now though, yes?"

Nick nodded.

"You should try to mend that relationship, if you can. My papi didn't approve of me going into show biz, and there was a moment when he ended up in the hospital while we were estranged - it made me realize just how unimportant some things really are in the grand scheme. You only get one mami, Nicky."

Judy nodded at Nick, but their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the lynx waiter with a basket of hot towels for them to keep during the meal. A second waiter, this one a sun bear, gave each guest a cup of hot green tea. As he bowed out, two Zapanese otters stepped behind the bar. One was Ono Yoshizaku, the other had very similar features, but was much older in appearance - obviously his father. They both bowed, placing their paws on the cutting board in front of them, and said together:

"Watashitachi no sushiya e yōkoso. Anata no shokuji o tanoshimi kudasai!"

The two otter's voices, Yoshi's a stentorian baritone and his father's a gravelly tenor, harmonized together into a masculine declaration of familiarity with each other - and confidence in their work. A pangolin walked behind them and set a large basket on a stool between their workstations.

Judy didn't know exactly what the protocol to follow was, but copied Nick, who bowed back, saying "Konbanwa, Ono-San, Ono-San. Itadakimasu!"

Judy wasn't surprised Nick knew what to say and do, given that he was apparently close with Yoshizaku in the past. Isabella, however, just had memories of Nick as a little kit - prompting her to ask:

"Have you been here before, Nicky?"

Nick was about to answer when, surprisingly, the stern-faced elder Ono spoke up, in very heavily accented english: "Wilde-San is why Sushiya Ono is still open."

"Really!"

Yoshizaku-San nodded at the pop star.

"There's got to be a story there, Nicky," Isabella said.

"I want to hear it too! There has to be more than what you said outside," Judy said. The two otters began to work, as an assistant brought out two wooden boards, one with a large cut of translucent white fish, the other with a bundle of what looked to be prepared vegetables. Yoshizaku began carefully slicing the greens, and his father gently sliced small portions of the fish.

"Well… this all happened when I still had a deal with Mr. Big," Nick began. Behind the bar, Yoshizaku opened the lid of the basket, revealing the sushi rice inside, which steamed gently. He and his father both took small pawfuls of the rice, working the fish and greens carefully into onigiri, their digits cupping, pressing, and forming the rice and topping into differently bite-size morsels for each diner.

"Part of what I did was manage his 'interests' at the Fishtown Wholesale Market. I guess my sense of smell combined with my good business acumen gave Mr. Big the idea that I was the ideal mammal to run a food market. You'd be shocked just how cut-throat and petty a bunch of fishmongers and produce mammals can be - they'd get into paw fights over underselling one another by cents, they'd mislabel things, or try and sell stuff that was going rotten… none of which Mr. Big liked."

"Wait, Nicky… you're not talking about the Tundratown mafia? _That_ Mr. Big? The one they tell all those horrible stories about?" Isabella asked.

Nick laughed nervously. "Yeeeah. That's the guy, alright."

Isabella blanched a little, and said, looking wide-eyed down at Judy, "I guess he wasn't kidding about being involved with a 'not-so-good bunch of mammals.'"

Judy smiled up at Isabella, and turning to Nick, said "Being upset over bad produce sounds just like him." She turned back to Isabella, saying "Very honest shrew, for a criminal."

Isabella looked between the two in disbelief, as Nick continued: "Aaannyway, I started to notice an otter who, without fail, was there at the crack of dawn every morning, and who only ever bought the absolute best in the market. He always seemed to leave with a little less every day, though, and I eventually got curious enough to strike up a conversation. That's when I met Yoshizaku-San, and found out he was the buyer and chef for Sushiya Ono, which was famous even then. He told me that they were basically being driven out of business by the lack of high quality fish and produce in the market - the old manager, the mammal before the guy I replaced, used to make sure the kind of ingredients Ono-San needed were available - but since he'd passed away, his replacement had focused on profitability more than quality, and the stall owners just couldn't get the best goods in anymore."

Yoshizaku himself spoke up then: "Wilde-San, here, changed that, and made sure that the practice of bringing in true gourmet ingredients became part of the market culture. He saved Sushiya Ono."

Yoshizaku and his father both placed precisely shaped and sized nigiri on the serving tile in front of each diner, carefully brushing shoyu over each.

"Karei. Flounder."

"Kobaku. Turnip and greens."

The two otters stood and watched the diners sternly. Isabella started to turn to Judy and ask a question, but Nick cleared his throat, gently interrupting. Then he said "Izzy. You're supposed to eat each piece within 45 seconds of when it's served - that's how carefully timed everything is here."

Rocky, seated to Isabella's left, picked up his nigiri with his digits, and popped it into his mouth whole. Judy followed suit, as did Nick. Gazelle shook her head and said, "So many rules!" before popping her own piece into her mouth.

The whitish, translucent fish was soft and rich; the rice vinegary and warm, a perfect combination in Nick's mouth. He closed his eyes while chewing, yet again blown away by how something so simple could be so perfectly composed.

The turnip and greens Judy and Isabella were given were equally perfect - the greens crunchy, grassy, and slightly bitter, the turnip root soft and marinated to deepen it's delicate sweetness with a citrusy bite.

The four diners found the otters already working on the next pieces of nigiri before they'd even finished the first, assistants bringing cutting boards with various ingredients to and from the kitchen. They had switched diets, Yoshizaku handling the pre-cut waxy-white fish, and his father tying a nori strip around a bright yellow vegetable. A few seconds of paw work produced the second round of sushi.

"Daikon no tsukemono. Pickled radish."

"Sumi-Ika. Squid."

Judy laughed as she popped the almost neon yellow nigiri into her mouth. "I don't know how you expected us to talk at all. They serve you so fast!"

Isabella laughed, swallowing the crunchy, perfect tasting daikon. "I heard it was kind of intense eating here."

The squid was tender, crosshatched with knife marks, and not at all rubbery.

"Totally intense," Rocky said, "but worth it."

"Every piece is perfect, every time," Nick said.

Judy turned to Isabella. Nick had a sudden, inexplicable feeling of extreme trepidation.

{Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek}

"So… What was Nick like when he was little?" she asked Isabella.

The pop-star laughed. "He was a sweet little kit. My parents were wary of me being friends with a predator, though, so we'd only really see each other in public playgrounds or at school. We were both shy and liked books more than other kits, so we got along well… a kit and a fawn carving out a quiet corner of the world to share. I was usually the quieter one, Nicky liked to to talk; and when he did, you could just tell how full of plans he was, and all the clever things he wanted from his future. The other students might have teased him for being a fox trying to break out of fox stereotypes, but it all rolled off his back. Nicky was too proud and self-confident to let it affect him."

Then Isabella frowned. "At least, he was until 3rd grade. Something changed in him then, some light of his snuffed out. He wasn't cheerful anymore, just quiet, hiding, bitter. He didn't want to talk to me at all any more. The things other kits said to him - the teasing that used to never bother him - it seemed to hit him harder than ever before. He didn't talk about the future anymore - his attention was consumed by… something else, some drive to take back whatever it was he'd lost from the mammals around him. He moved away pretty shortly after that."

Isabella looked up from her mug of tea to see Judy looking back at her with glassy eyes, and Nick looking positively ashamed.

"Nicky… it's ok! We were little. We both grew up ok, didn't we?"

Nick gave a sad little smirk, which Judy caught in the corner of her eye as she turned back to her serving tile. "Eventually, I guess," he said, almost under his breath - but Judy's ears caught it.

If the day they'd had so far had taught her anything, it's that Nick thought far less of himself than the confident image he projected - particularly when it came to the fox he'd been before he'd met Judy. Feeling a strong desire to comfort him, Judy placed a paw on his forearm. Nick looked down at her and was greeted by a warm smile. His expression didn't change very much, but Nick's ears perked right up in happiness, and his tail began to wag behind him. He placed his right paw over hers, just as the next 'course' was served:

"Renkon. Lotus root."

"Akami. Yellow Tail."

Judy watched Nick snatch up the nigiri, which he ate with a look of bliss on his muzzle.

"Is raw fish really that good?" Judy asked him.

"Yeth."

Isabella laughed, and Yoshizaku asked Judy, "Hopps-San, would you like to try fish for the next piece?"

Ono-San senior spoke up: "She should have next three, if she tries at all."

Judy considered the suggestion, her brow furrowing. She'd mixed up a lunch order with Nick once when they'd gone to a new place and accidentally ate his omnivore burrito - only figuring it out afterward. It had actually been pretty good, although all the guilt she'd felt afterward made her a little queasy.

"I don't have the stomach for it - last time I tried meat I couldn't keep it down." Isabella said, "But Rocky says it's delicious."

"It is. Although I understand that food recommendations from a raccoon might not carry a whole lot of weight."

Judy chuckled at Rocky's comment. "You know, why not? The worst that happens is that I don't like it."

With a Cheshire grin on his muzzle, Nick said, "It's a slippery slope, fluff. Today, fish. Tomorrow, you'll be hunting for a snack in Little Rodentia."

Judy swatted his shoulder as Isabella chuckled next to her. "Weren't you the one pushing chicken on me just a few hours ago?"

"Pushing is such a _strong_ word!"

"Ok, then, renumerating it's virtues."

Nick laughed, and immediately changed the subject. "So, Izzy, I've been curious - where do you get the inspiration for your songs?"

"Hey!" Judy exclaimed.

"Well, I get them from all sorts of places. Like Try Everything, that big hit from a year ago? I wrote that watching a nest full of baby birds learning to fly outside of my apartment window."

"So.. sort of like Blackbird? The Beetles song?" Nick asked.

"Maybe, I guess. But I certainly don't have the talent of Paul MouseCartney."

"Don't underrate yourself like that!" Judy interjected. "You're wonderful!"

Isabella smiled at her. "That is very kind of you, Judy. But I'm not so egotistical to think I come near what the Beetles accomplished."

The next course of sushi arrived just then. Judy was presented with a deep red cut of fish over rice, a color and presentation so patently carnivorous that she began to regret her decision.

"Akami. Lean Tuna."

"Kabocha. Pumpkin."

Nick eagerly snatched up his nigiri. "I see why they want you to try the next three. This is like the holy trinity of sushi," he said, and popped the piece into his maw.

Judy picked up her tuna, and looked at the bite-sized-for-her nigiri from a couple of directions. Then she shrugged and ate it whole, as designed. The fish had a very different flavor then she expected - it was very light, not at all like how tuna usually smelled, and almost melted in her mouth. It was buttery, delicate, perfectly complemented by the vinegary rice. The vegetable nigiris had been very tasty - but this… the raw fish and the rice and the soy sauce and the hint of wasabi; together, they were a transcendent experience. It simply did not compare.

Nick watched Judy's eyes widen, her expression becoming one of a beatific spiritual awakening. She swallowed the morsel.

"O-Oh my goodness," Judy stuttered out.

Rocky the raccoon burst out in guffawing laughter at the end of the sushi bar, and the elder Ono-San gave a rare smile, as he cut three differently sized pieces of the next fish.

"Is-uh, is all meat this good?" Judy asked.

"Oh heck no!" Nick chuckled, "Most of it isn't as tasty as sushi, and most sushi isn't anywhere near this good. I mean, this is the best sushi bar in the world."

"So everything else will probably be a disappointment?"

"Hah, yeah, I guess so."

"Good. Less temptation."

The Ono father and son finished the next nigiri just then, and after a brushing of shoyu, placed the morsels on their respective serving plates.

"Chū-Toro. Medium tuna."

"Gobo. Burdock root."

The new piece in front of Judy was pink, with a fine webbing of white throughout the cut. It looked very different than the deep red of the lean tuna. Shoyu swirled on the surface, interacting with the oils in the fish.

"Medium tuna?" Judy asked.

"Medium fat," Yoshizaku answered. "Three different cuts, three different flavors."

Judy picked up the piece and ate it without hesitation. It tasted similar to the last one, but was even quicker to melt and had a richness and nuttiness that the lean cut lacked. It was delicious.

Next to her Nick was licking his paw pads, trying to get the last bits of the fish oil. "Chū-toro is my favorite. Such a lovely balance."

He looked over to see Judy experiencing a series of emotions and expressions that bordered on the obscene to watch. His muzzle slowly rolled into a leering grin. Eventually Judy looked over at him.

"What?"

"And _you_ were giving _me_ crap for enjoying blueberries just last night."

Judy shoved his arm, smiling.

"You two are very cute together, you know that?" Isabella asked.

Nick waited a moment to see if Judy would object to someone using the C-word while describing her, but when she didn't, Nick said "Thanks, Izzy."

Judy was uncharacteristically clammed up. She'd been steadily (with much effort) trying to just treat Isabella normally, and not be some crazy fan-mammal, but this particular comment seemed to bypass her rational mind. 'Gazelle… thinks me and Nick are cute together! Omigosh.' She gave a little squee with her paws fisted in front of her muzzle. 'If she thinks it's okay... maybe this isn't so crazy after all.' Judy's train of thought was derailed by the arrival of the next nigiri.

"Ōtoro. Fatty tuna."

"Maitaki. King mushroom."

This piece of tuna was banded with fat, almost white with the level of marbling. Judy ate it quickly and was rewarded with a silky richness that rivaled the finest chocolates she'd ever had, the best cheese, the most perfect carrot. It was delicious in a way that she had never experienced before - a kind of overriding pleasure that filled her mind like she'd only experienced before with some truly decadent desserts, but this wasn't sweet. Whatever else you could call it, it was amazing. When that thought occurred to her, Judy let out a derisive snort, shaking her head. If all it took was a piece of sushi for Nick to amaze her, she had to raise her standards.

"What?" Nick asked her.

"Nothing. I'll tell you later," Judy said.

Yoshizaku spoke up then. "Did you enjoy the fish, Hopps-San?"

"Yes I did! Very much."

"Would you like fish for the rest of your meal?"

Judy gave it some thought. "I think… maybe not all of it. A few pieces would be nice, but mostly veggies. You pick what's best."

Yoshizaku bowed to her, and went back to preparing the next nigiri.

The entire meal was delicious, from top to bottom - an incomparable experience for all four diners, and a revelation for Judy. Isabella had asked about Judy and Nick's training as officers, and what their work was usually like, and they had fallen into shop-talk, telling stories of crazy arrests and mountains of paperwork as the sushi kept coming. They had just finished the last 'dessert' course - kampyo maki and tamago - when Nick glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly 8:30pm.

"I'm sorry, everyone. We've got to be going." Yoshizaku gestured to the lynx, who presented Nick with the bill for dinner. Nick handed back the bill with a credit card.

"Oh, Nick, do we have to? When am I ever going to get the chance to meet Gazelle again?"

Isabella giggled at Judy's obvious reluctance to leave, and said, "Nicky, Judy, what are your phone numbers? We should meet up again sometime - or I could get you backstage passes, maybe?"

Judy emitted a delighted squeak and dug her phone out of her purse. "Mine is 555-9939."

"555-3966." Nick said.

There was a moment of Isabella typing into her phone, and then both Judy and Nick's phones pinged. "That's me," said Isabella. "We should meet up once I get home from my Zapanese tour!"

"You truly have absolutely no idea how much I would like that," said Judy. Nick grinned, taking the his card and a receipt back from the lynx waiter. He was signing it when Judy happened to glance over and see the total, and froze in shock.

"It was lovely to see you again, Izzy. Have a good tour!" Nick led the still shocked Judy past the bar and out of the restaurant, back into the Peak Street Station Hallway. Judy's stiff gait relaxed slightly.

"Did I…"

"Did you just have a $330, basically perfect sushi dinner with the most popular pop-star in the world, Gazelle? Yes, yes you did."

Judy put a paw over her open muzzle while they climbed the stairs.

"Did… I-"

"Did you just immensely enjoy eating raw fish? Yes, you did that too."

Judy's expression turned angry and she slugged Nick in his left arm.

"Ow!"

"How could you spend almost $700 _on a single dinner_?! Don't you dare do that again!"

"We can split the bill next time," Nick said, while rubbing the spot she had punched. "Don't you dare tell me you don't want to go back!"

Nick unlocked and opened the passenger door of his car for Judy. She waited until he got in the driver seat, and said, "Of course I want to go back! Which is why you should apologize - I don't need a hobby this expensive!"

He laughed, as Judy grumbled to herself, as she went back over the amazingness of the meal in her head. She shook her head, realizing just how singularly amazing a dinner she'd just had.

"Damn."

"What?"

"...I think this already qualifies as a pretty amazing night."

"And we're just getting started," Nick said, smoothly pulling out of the parking spot.

Judy was quiet for a time, watching Nick drive. He moved with a smooth surety, a small smile of pride and enjoyment on his muzzle. After the silence stretched for several minutes, Nick produced a cassette tape from somewhere and popped it into the stereo. Very, very 80's music started to play quietly.

{Camouflage - That Smiling Face}

Nick moved his right paw to rest on Judy's exposed thigh, which made her shiver slightly from the intimacy of the contact. Nick lifted his paw, looking down at her in concern, but Judy shook her head.

"It's alright. It felt nice."

Nick smiled and replaced his paw. Judy wrapped her paws around his wrist and larger paw, stroking and caressing it.

Questions to ask Nick, and curiosities about how his old relationship with Gazelle flitted through Judy's head. But she didn't want to interrupt the comfortable silence between them, and chose instead to bask in the new, physical connection she had found with the tod next to her, leaning her head against his upper arm. It was a strange new world to her - never had simple fur contact with a mammal, other than maybe her parents, affected her so much before. Occasionally Nick had to pull his paw away to shift gears, but he always returned it to her grasp as soon as he could. His confident, sure presence filled her with a glowing, swelling warmth and an immense sense of security.

Street lights passed overhead, lighting the old car's interior in bands of white LED harshness, interspersed with orange from older mercury vapor lights. With a glance down, Nick gently extricated his paw from Judy's grasp again, and opened the windows and the sunroof, letting the warm night breeze into the car's interior. The wind ruffled their exposed fur.

Judy tilted her head back, ears up and flitting in the wind, and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, trying to burn the moment into her memory. The sound of old music, the feel of the leather seat and Nick's closeness, the purring of the engine and the scent of Nick mingling with the scents of the old car (leather, hot oil, and a peculiar musk)... it whirled together into a perfect sense impression, a complete expression of a small but perfect moment.

Before either of them was really ready for the short ride to end, Nick spoke up:

"We're here."

Judy opened her eyes to see a grand building to the right, half classical and half modern. Nick pulled his M3 up in front of the Zootopia Orchestra Hall, and stepped out of the car as a valet mammal opened the door for him and his passenger.

Before he stepped out of the way to let the other mammal get in, he said "83,874 miles. I will check. You can drive a stick, right?"

The coyote wearing a black button up shirt gulped and nodded. "Yes sir. We'll park it close by."

Nick nodded once and said "Make sure you have the right gear. It's not where you expect." He accepted a claim tag, and walked around the car, where Judy took his arm.

"You're going to let some random valet mammal drive your car?"

"Sure. They usually take the job because they love cars, and ARE RESPONSIBLE DRIVERS WITH GOOD RECORDS!" he shouted, as the group of young valet mammals' eyes went wide and they collectively nervously nodded. "Besides, when are they ever going to get the chance to drive an E30 M3 again?"

Judy giggled at a cowed young fox in a valet uniform as they passed. Nick held the door into the building open for her, and they walked to the ticketing window which had a "Will Call" sign above it.

"Two for Wilde?" Nick asked the deer doe behind the glass.

She paged through a box of tickets, then looked up at Nick and shook her head. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't have any under that name."

Nick tisked. "I ordered online, did it not get printed out?"

The deer checked a computer off to her right. "I'm sorry, I don't see them, sir. What seats did you select?"

Nick's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped slightly open. "I… uh. Didn't."

The deer rolled her eyes. "You have to pick seats before you pay, sir. Did you even look at the website?"

"I was in a hurry. Well, can I buy some now?"

The doe sighed, then went back to her computer. "I'm… sorry, sir, we're all sold out. Bearthoven's 5th is very popular."

"Shit!"

Judy drew a little closer when she heard Nick curse. "What's wrong?"

Nick's shoulders slumped and his head hung as he turned to face Judy. "Apparently I messed up buying tickets online, and they're sold out now," he said rather despondently.

"And I'm betting you don't have a heretofore unknown relationship with a pop-star to dig you out of this pit, do you?"

Nick shook his head, too upset at his mistake to sass her back.

"Luckily, you have me," Judy said, and put her phone up to her head, having dialed a number while Nick was distracted.

"Huh?"

Judy waved a paw to quiet him and turned away. "Annie? Hi! It's Judy! ...Oh, I know, that's why I'm calling - I'm at the hall, too, and the box office is sold out of tickets. Is there any way you could get me a couple of comps? ...Really? Awesome, thank you! Ok, I will. Thanks again, Annabelle. I'll see you at intermission, ok? Bye, and good luck!"

Then Judy stepped up to the Will Call box. "Excuse me, Miss? There should be a couple of tickets under 'Taltrees'?"

The doe looked through the box again. "Here we are. Do you have I.D.?"

"Well, about that-" Judy was interrupted by a phone ringing on the deer's desk.

"Excuse me," she said, and picked up the phone. "Will Call. Yes? Ok, alright, I got it. Bye."

The doe then fed the tickets into the pass-through tray. "Enjoy the show, Ms. Hopps."

Judy turned back to Nick, who was staring open-mawed at her. "What… how did you do that?"

Judy smiled cheerfully, and pulled Nick into the foyer, where mammals were already funneling into the hall, as the lights pulsed dim twice.

"My cousin Annabelle is 3rd chair violist with the ZSO. A couple of her friends canceled on her after she got them tickets, so we get them instead," Judy said.

"Well." Nick agreed, with a happily surprised expression, "Luckily, I have you."

"Yee-up!" Judy said, bouncing a little.

The two made their way into the beautiful, centuries old performance hall, and an usher directed them towards the front on the main floor. Their seats were spectacular - just off center, about four rows back. The orchestra was already on stage - a tremendously diverse mix of animals playing all sorts of instruments, currently tuning and warming up. They had barely sat down when the lights dimmed, and a voice over reminded them to silence their phones. Then a kudu in a tuxedo - the conductor - stepped on stage to applause, walked to the platform at center stage in front of the orchestra. He raised his arms, and a small group of mammals began to play as the others observed.

tinyurl com/zsoconcert

{Anner Bylsma - Concerto for Violoncello, Strings and Basso Continuo in B Minor, RV 424 [9:17]}

The first piece was a shorter work for an ensemble by Vivaldingo, and was a virtuoso performance by the first chair cellist. It was direct and energetic, a showcase of the range of the cello, building to a dramatic crescendo that left little doubt of the abilities of the cellist. The audience applauded, the conductor bowed and directed the cellist to bow, and the audience gradually fell silent. Nick leaned over to Judy and whispered in her ear, "I've never heard that performed live before."

"You know it, though?"

"Sure! It's so expressive. I love music that has emotion behind it. And what an amazing cello performance!"

Judy shushed him when a caracal soloist with a trumpet stepped on stage to fresh applause, and moved to just left of center. When the crowd fell silent, the conductor again raised his baton, and the performance began again.

{Trumpet Concerto "Lucenaris" - Tobias Brostrom}

The second piece of the night was a modern work. It began with the rhythm section - chimes and gongs striking out a tonal palette before the orchestra held an ominous chord and the soloist trumpeter eased in, shifting notes in a minor scale. It was a prelude of the dark, tense work that featured electronic instrumentation and a huge, active rhythm section.

It was an approach to orchestral music that pushed Nick's idea of what classical was supposed to be - an eerie, intense expression of worries that enthralled him, hooking into the intense emotions he liked best from his music.

Judy was just thankfully glad it wasn't an atonal mess, like she'd been forced to sit through last time she went to watch Annabelle play. The concerto faded out before either of them was ready for it to end. The audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, and the soloist and conductor had to return to the stage and bow twice before the audience quieted and the lights came up, signaling the intermission.

"Wow."

"You said it, Carrots. That was pretty amazing."

"So much better than what I had to sit through last time. This was great!"

Nick grabbed his program, hoping to learn more about what he'd just watched, but Judy stood and tugged on his arm. He looked up with a raised eyebrow and a questioning glance.

"C'mon, we have to say hello to Annabelle!"

Nodding in agreement, Nick stood and followed her back out to the foyer, where she led them to a corner near a door marked "Authorized Mammals Only." In a couple of minutes a dusky, mousy-brown rabbit doe stepped through the door, and upon seeing Judy, dashed over and hugged her.

"Judy! It's so nice to see you!"

"It's good to see you too, Annabelle."

"I thought you said you were never coming back after last time?"

Judy chuckled. "It wasn't exactly my plan to be here tonight."

Annabelle unlocked her arms and stepped back, noticing Nick for the first time. "Who's this?" she asked, with a carefully neutral expression.

"Nick Wilde," he said, extending a paw. "I work with Judy."

Annabelle, with a very slight hesitation, placed her paw in his much larger one and shook hands. "It's nice to meet you, Nick."

"He's taking me on a date tonight," Judy said with a happy grin. Annabelle's politely distant expression turned to one of utter shock as she turned to stare straight at Judy.

"That's-uh... that's lovely!"

"He goofed up buying the tickets but didn't tell me where we were going, or I would have called you earlier. Thanks again for getting us in!"

Sensing Annabelle's discomfort, Nick carefully disengaged his paw from hers and stepped away, saying "I'm going to get something to drink. Would you like anything?"

"No, thank you, Nick. I'm alright." Judy said.

Seemingly unperturbed Nick sashayed into the crowd with the flick of his tail. Judy glanced after him with a happy expression on her face, which Annabelle made note of.

"Does Uncle Stu know you're dating a fox?"

"No! And we're not dating. We're on a date."

"I saw how you looked at him. A predator. A _fox_."

"Don't be like that, Annabelle. I know for a fact you dated a badger a few years back. And anyway, I smile at everyone!"

"You've never smiled at _me_ like _that_."

Judy sighed in consternation. "Annabelle, please…"

"Fine, fine. How are you enjoying the show?"

"It's been wonderful! I was surprised how much I liked the second piece."

Nick appeared out of the crowd just then, a bottle of water in his paw.

"It was pretty amazing," he said. "I've never heard anything quite like it."

"It was a lot of fun to play. Lots of counting, though," she said. "Hakan is fantastic - he was wonderful to play with. What a great trumpet player!"

Judy and Nick nodded their agreement, as the lights dimmed in a short pulse.

"You'll have to excuse me," Annabelle said, and ducked back through the door as Nick and Judy waved, "I've got a concert to go perform!"

"Shall we, Ms. Hopps?" said Nick, extending his arm for her to take, which she did.

"Lead on, Mr. Wilde."

The pair took their seats in the auditorium just as the lights dimmed and the conductor returned to the stage to applause. He raised his baton, and the orchestra launched into Bearthoven's 5th Symphony.

{Ludwig van Beethoven - 5th Symphony}

Every mammal knew the opening movement of Bearthoven's 5th - but most, including Nick and Judy, had never heard the entire symphony, particularly not live. It was beautiful, ebbing and flowing as the famous quadruplet rhythm of the opening resurfaced throughout the 30 minute plus performance in different forms. After the the tremendous crescendo, the audience exploded into applause.

As Judy and Nick filed down the aisle, she leaned up and spoke into his ear, "Where to now, Slick?"

"Wait and see," he said.

"Are we actually going to be able to just walk in to wherever we're going this time? Please?"

"I promise, no more shenanigans. And thank you for getting us in to the orchestra after my goof up."

"You're welcome. It would have made for a pretty cruddy first date if a bunch of the night got messed up."

"Well, I've still got ample opportunity to do _that_ ," Nick said, handing his claim ticket to the valet attendant.

"Right. Like if some valet mammal had crashed your car," Judy said, pointing in the direction the M3's growling engine could be heard coming from.

With an expression of horror, Nick looked in that direction to see… his car, in perfect shape. He looked down at Judy, who giggled behind her paw, and he sighed.

"Sly bunny."

"Dumb fox!"

"...I suppose I earned that," he said, as a dingo valet held the car door open for Judy. "But I've still got plenty of night left to prove it wrong."

"I don't think that's nearly enough time, Slick."

Nick sighed in acquiescence, and got into his car.

* * *

A/N - *whoof.* That was quite an update. Apologies for the long delay due to Real Life and writers block. Hopefully the extra long chapter helps - as well as the promise that the next one will be up sooner. Thanks again to Fairlane302 for his advice and editing!


	11. Chapter 11

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - Aaaarrgh, I keep dragging these updates out. It's not intentional, I promise.

Again, feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight Tonight}

Street lights flickered by overhead as Nick drove Judy and himself to their next destination for the evening.

"Are you still not telling me where we're going?"

"Nope," Nick replied, popping the P.

"...Can I at least get a hint?"

Nick shifted the car out of gear at a stoplight.

"Well… we've had dinner, and some entertainment, so the last thing you're supposed to do on a date is…?"

"Get drinks?"

"Got it in one."

Judy fell quiet. After a minute of pregnant silence, Nick turned to her and asked, "Judy? Are you ok?"

"I don't know, Nick."

"What's wrong?"

"Alcohol is sort of what kicked this off, isn't it? Or my inability to hold it," Judy said, her voice tinged with apprehension.

Nick frowned. "I suppose it was."

"So who knows what could happen _this_ time."

"Judy," Nick said, "Do you regret today?"

"No. Not really. Not the good parts, anyway. It's been a bit of a rollercoaster."

"I don't regret it at all."

"That's different, Nick."

"How's that? We're talking about finding out there could be something more to explore between us, right? Something that both of us need to be interested in doing?"

"Nick. I'm saying this wrong…"

Not seeing where she was going, Nick began to get agitated. "So, you _don't_ want to see if there's something deeper here?"

"Nick! Stop. Let me think. Please. I'm not as good with words as you are. Just give me a minute."

"Ok," Nick agreed reluctantly.

There was silence in the car apart from the normal sounds of driving for a couple of minutes. Then Judy said:

"Nick." His ears perked to hear his name said by her. "I _do not_ regret finding out how you feel, and figuring out that I probably feel similarly. I already told you, I want to see where this goes; I want to explore it."

She sighed. "That has nothing to do with what I'm trying to say. See, you having no regrets about today… it's different because you got to _decide_ to tell me how you feel. It was a choice. And I feel like I had that choice taken away from me because I was drinking, and I did something I wouldn't have if I hadn't been. I'm not upset about the _consequences_ of that choice, apart from smelling like a fox all day," she said with a wry smile, "but it bothers me that it was… taken out of my hands by alcohol."

Judy fell silent, and after a moment, Nick quietly said, "So you needed a little push. What's wrong with that?"

"There's nothing _wrong_ with it. I never said wrong. Plenty of relationships start from a drunken night gone well. I just… Nick, it's uneven. You were able to come to me, clear of mind, and express yourself; I got that choice taken away because I was drinking."

Judy gestured at the air in a frustrated fashion. "All I'm really trying to do is explain why I'm apprehensive about going to a bar tonight."

"...oh," Nick said. "That makes sense." He paused. "It's ok. We don't have to go."

"No, it's alright. I'm sure you planned something special - I just won't go overboard. Besides, you'll be drinking along with me, right?"

"I still have to drive, Carrots."

"Drinking _responsibly_ along with me."

"Yeah, that," he said with a smirk.

Judy reached across the car to his lap and tugged Nick's arm into hers, so she could hold his paw. He pulled it away to shift gears, and when he brought it back Judy took it in both her paws, tracing patterns across his paw pads with her blunt claws. She sighed heavily.

"That sounded loaded," Nick noted.

"Why is it all the parts of this I expected to be the hardest are turning out to be the easiest?"

"Huh?"

"Except trying to learn more about you. That's just as bad as I expected it to be."

Nick grimaced. "I'm sorry, Judy."

"It's alright. It's not like I didn't know who I was getting involved with."

"I promise I'm working on it."

"I believe you."

"...So, what's so much easier?"

"Oh! Uh," Judy said, a blush creeping up her ears, "I… kinda figured the instinctual… y'know, physical stuff, was going to be difficult. But it's actually been… sort of..."

"Effortless? So far?"

"Yeah." Judy paused, thinking. "I don't know, we usually got along so well I think I was just focusing on the unknowns."

"Got along in the past-tense?"

Judy frowned, looking down at Nick's paw. "See, this is what I mean! All these conversations feel so… thorny."

"I'm sorry. It's probably my fault. I keep picking at what you're saying, looking for something wrong..."

She sighed, hugging his arm closer to her. "I don't know, Nick. I feel so… adrift. I've never been here before. My life has always been about proving myself to doubters, all about my own drive to succeed. Everything else got swept away in front of that. I've never had anyone I had to care about, like this... It's scary and new and I'm not sure what to say most of the time and it's so out of my control."

"Judy…"

"I spent so much of my life being the only mammal who believed in me, no one else understanding how I felt. I don't think I've talked this much about my feelings… well, ever. People just used to brush my dreams off because they didn't understand me." Judy looked up at him. "You do, though. You understand me. Understand what it means to want to be more than what you are, what every mammal tells you you're supposed to be. And it's… terrifying to not be alone. To have someone else to worry about. Amazing and terrifying and I'm so happy I have you."

"I didn't understand until you made me," Nick said with a smile. As the car came to a stop at a light, he leaned over and gave Judy a kiss on her cheek. She squeaked in happiness, turned her head, and kissed him back on the lips, their noses booping. The kiss deepened, both of them leaning in, falling into the sensation. Judy reached up and grabbed Nick by the base of his ears, pulling him closer.

* **HONK** *

The sound of a horn blowing behind Nick's car brought them both harshly back to reality - the light had turned green. Nick quickly threw the car in gear and took off with a chirp of the tires.

"Uh. Whoops," Nick said. He didn't see the blazing red of Judy's ears.

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. I started it."

"Ok, then, I'm _not_ sorry," Judy said testily.

"Good!" Nick spat out, loudly.

After a tense pause, they both broke out into giggles at the same time. Once the laughter died down, Nick said, "Judy, I really am sorry about nitpicking at what you've been saying. I keep looking for some sign you've come to your senses and don't want to deal with me anymore… I just can't believe you'd be interested in someone like me."

Judy took his right paw into both of hers again, brought it up to her muzzle, kissed the palm pad, and nuzzled into it, her eyes closed.

"Dumb fox."

Nick's expression eased into a contented smile as he pulled up to a blank storefront at the edge of the Rainforest District that had a suspiciously large number of cars parked in front of it. About a block past, Nick found a spot and parallel parked. As he did, Judy looked around, having lost some track of where they were going.

"Where are we going in the R.D.?"

"Broken Branch Lounge."

"I don't see it."

"We passed it a block ago," Nick said, and got out of the car. He opened the door for Judy and fished a folded umbrella out of the passenger door pocket before offering a paw to her. She took it and got out of the car, taking Nick's elbow as he closed and locked the car. Once he pocketed his keys, he popped open the umbrella just as a scheduled rain started falling. Judy snuggled up to him under the umbrellas' rain shadow, and they started towards the blank storefront.

The building, integrated into the base of a gigantic tree, was painted a dull grey and the windows were boarded up. A single door with a chainsaw shaped logo that read "Broken Branch Tree Services," a phone number below it, and an intercom mounted next to the door were the only indications that any business at all occupied the space. Judy looked on skeptically as Nick tugged on the door handle, nodding when he found it locked.

"Nick… didn't you say no more shenanigans?"

"Try the phone number."

Judy looked up at him in exasperation.

"Trust me. Try the number and ask for tonight's password."

Judy pulled her phone out from her purse and dialed the number painted on the door. A female voice answered: "Broken Branch."

"Um… what's tonight's password?"

"Papaya shards."

The call immediately disconnected. Judy lowered the phone from her head and stared down at it as if it were a foreign object, which made Nick laugh.

"So?"

"Huh?"

"What's tonight's password?"

"Oh. Uh, Papaya shards."

"Alright," Nick said. He pressed the call button on the intercom. A gruff sounding voice answered: "Password?"

"Papaya shards," Nick replied.

There was a loud buzzing as the door unlocked by wire. Nick pulled open the door, revealing a stairway going up into the building. He folded the umbrella as they ducked inside, climbing the stairs arm in arm.

"You promised, Nick," Judy said with disapproval in her voice.

"I did. And this is exactly what everyone who comes here has to do," he said, reaching a heavy black velvet curtain at the top of the stairs. He parted it to reveal a small, dimly lit vestibule where a badger sat on a tall chair. An identical curtain blocked Judy's view further into the building.

"How many?" the badger asked, his voice matching the one on the intercom.

"Two," Nick answered, "but I believe I have some special arrangements under the name 'Wilde?'"

"Ah, that's right," the badger said, and knocked hard on the wall behind him. The far curtain parted around the head of a female zebra.

"Yes?"

"That reservation you told me about is here."

The zebra turned to look at Nick and Judy, whose paw was in his arm. "Mr. Wilde?"

"That's me."

"...Please give us a minute," she said, her expression drawing closed.

Nick knew that look. He was well used to it. It was the 'You didn't sound like a fox on the phone' look. Speciesism at its finest. It meant that his specially requested reservations were probably about to go down the toilet, unless he intervened. Before the zebra disappeared behind the curtain, Nick spoke up: "Could you please let Andy know I'm here?"

The zebra's expression turned a shade skeptical, but she gave a curt nod and pulled back through the curtain.

Judy watched the exchange with a growing unease. She gently tugged at Nick's arm so he would lean over and she could whisper into his ear, "...She was going to give us a hard time, wasn't she?"

Nick nodded, very slightly.

"Speciesist," Judy whispered. "Who's Andy?"

Nick straightened up and whispered into her ear, "Head bartender and owner. An old friend."

After about a minute, the zebra returned. "Follow me, please," she said, pushing aside the curtain to reveal the space beyond.

{The Seatbelts - Odd One's}

The room was almost entirely painted black, a long space with a glossy black bar across from the entrance. Old fashioned, high backed velvety chairs stood in clusters along the near wall, and to the right was a seating area for a small group. The bar was nearly completely full but was not loud; the music and 1920's boudoir-esque decor creating an atmosphere of subdued, furtive pleasure - an idea all the more enhanced by the speakeasy style hidden entrance.

The zebra directed Judy and Nick to a pair of tall chairs at the bar. Nick pulled them both out and offered a paw to Judy to help her up the medium mammal sized bar chair, which she ignored as she jumped up on her own. Nick huffed out a single laugh and slid into his own chair to her left.

Behind the bar were a spotted hyena shaking a cocktail, an antelope stirring something in a cut crystal mixing glass, and an American buffalo, who barely fit behind the bar, running citrus fruits through a juicer. All three were wearing black vests over white button up shirts with rolled up sleeves. The hyena was closest to Nick and Judy, and he gave a nod of recognition to Nick.

"Andy?" Judy asked.

The hyena nodded again in answer, and opened the steel shaker on the bar with a sharp *SNAP*. He put a bar strainer on the bottom half of it, and poured the light green, cloudy mixed drink through a second fine mesh strainer into a cocktail glass. Then he fished a dark red cherry out of a jar with a long toothpick, dropped it in the glass, and slid the completed cocktail to a serval sitting at the bar.

"Hey, brother," Andy said, moving to stand in front of Nick. His voice was incongruously low, a smooth bass that one felt almost in their chest. He offered his paw, and Nick accepted with a three-stage pawshake.

"It's been a while, Andy."

"It has."

Nick gestured to Judy sitting next to him. "This is Judy."

Andy examined her, his nose twitching gently. Then his eyebrows went up very slightly. He turned to Nick.

"Really?" He asked.

"Really," Nick responded.

"Ok I'm missing something here," Judy said. "Also you're both being really annoying."

"How's your date going?" Andy asked.

"...Nobody said we were on a date," Judy replied.

Andy tapped the side of his snout, right by his nose, and reached under the bar for a pair of leather bound drink menus which he set in front of them.

"Canid stuff," Nick said.

"Hey, I'm no dog," Andy said with a huff, "but that doesn't mean I don't have a good nose."

Judy groaned. "Is his scent mark still that obvious?"

Andy shook his head, his hair ridge flopping. "Probably not. You both have a lot of each other's scent on you, though. More than just casual contact could explain."

Judy looked at Nick, who shrugged.

Andy placed two glasses in front of them and filled each with water. "What can I get you tonight?"

Nick opened the menu and ran down the list of featured drinks.

"Mmmm… how about a Bufala Negra?"

Judy looked in her menu and found… nothing she'd ever heard of before. She bit her lip, looking at the unfamiliar ingredients.

"And for the lady?" Andy rumbled.

"Um."

"What do you usually drink?"

"Beer. Or, uh, jungle juice, if you count parties back home."

Out of the corner of her eye, Judy caught a glimpse of the light green drink Andy had just made.

"How about one of those?" She said, pointing down the bar.

"A Last Word? Alright," Andy said, and turned to start on their order.

Nick smiled. "Those are tasty. Kind of… herbal, though."

"Herbal?"

"Yeah. I don't know how else to describe it. Fresh, light, herbal."

"That's not a bad description," Andy said, his back to them.

"I'm sure it'll be delicious," Judy said.

As they waited for their drinks, Nick took one of Judy's paws in his own.

"Did you have any more questions for me?"

"Ummm… what's your favorite movie?"

"The Brothers Bloom," Nick said.

"I've never heard of it."

"It's about a pair of conmammals pulling one last job. One of them falls for their mark, and can't go through with it."

Judy's smile slowly grew as she said, "So it's about a hustler who falls in love and reforms, huh? I'd bet there totally isn't any particular reason it's your favorite, right?"

"Absolutely. 100%."

Judy laughed, the sound like joyous bells to Nick. He smirked in return, his ears perked and tail gently wagging.

"Who's in it?"

"Um… Adrien Bronco, Mark Buffalo, and Rachel Weisteria."

"And this has always been your favorite movie? Riiiight?"

"I mean, it's only been out for 9 years…"

Nick very pointedly avoided saying that he'd only preferred it for about a year.

"What about you, fluff?"

"Die Difficult."

"With Bruce Whitetail?"

"Yup!"

"A plucky cop doing the right thing against insurmountable odds when no one believes he can win? Now, why on earth would you be interested in a movie like _that_?" Nick said, his green eyes twinkling and his ears pulled back.

"Har, Har."

Just then, Andy returned with their drinks. Nick's was very dark brown, in a short rocks glass with a basil leaf in it. Judy's was the same light, cloudy green she'd just seen, with a deep red cherry in the bottom of the conical cocktail glass. Andy stood with his arms folded in front of them.

Nick took a sip of his. It was sweet, slightly bubbly, but very savory at the same time - it tasted of balsamic vinegar, basil, and brown sugar overtones; extremely complex and transitioning into different flavors in his mouth.

Judy took a tentative sip of hers, holding the glass by its stem. It was tart. She could taste gin, and lime, and a complex but sweet overtone of… herbs. Many, many different kinds of herbs combining into a rich but inseparable whole. It wasn't bad.

"That _was_ a good description, Nick."

"You like it?" Andy asked.

Judy took another sip. "It isn't something I would order all the time, but it's pretty good, yeah."

Andy nodded. "Good. How about yours, brother?"

"Delicious as always."

Andy grunted in recognition, a faint smile just about barely touching his muzzle, and walked away to check with another customer.

Nick was breathing the scent of his drink in deeply, luxuriating in the rich vinegar-basil combination, when Judy asked:

"Can I try yours?"

"Sure," Nick said, surrendering his glass to her. Judy took a sip. It reminded her of a sweet salad-in-a-glass at first, but it quickly changed on her palate, becoming rich and complex.

"...I think I like yours more."

"Then get one for your next drink, Carrots," he said, plucking the glass out of Judy's paw, "cause' this one's _mine_."

{Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko}

Judy's eyes narrowed as she looked down at her drink, then her expression brightened, and she turned her swiveling chair to face Nick.

"So, _Nick_ …"

"Hm?"

"What were we doing after this?" Judy asked in a breathy voice, leaning in towards him.

Nick turned to face her.

"I, uh, didn't have anything else planned…" he trailed off.

Judy leaned further in, over his lap, and reached out to walk her left paw up Nick's thigh. "Really? It seems so… _rude_ to show a lady such a lovely night, and just… leave it at that," she said, staring up at him with her amethyst eyes half-closed, biting her lower lip, her bright white incisors put to excellent use, her paw resting high up on the inside of his thigh.

"O-oh..." Nick stammered out, completely flustered, his tail wagging and his eyes wide. Judy'd never laid it on him this thick before, and it was more than a little disorienting.

"Oh well," Judy sighed and straightened up, running her blunt claws back down his thigh as she did. "Too bad," she said, turning forward and picking up a rocks glass filled with dark brown liquid, which she sipped from.

Nick looked at her, quickly gathering his wits, then turned to look down in front of him to find a cocktail glass filled with a cloudy green Last Word.

"It's called a hustle, sweetheart."

Judy sipped from 'her' cocktail, crossed her legs, and giggled as Nick looked on. He sighed and took a sip of the Last Word, smiling in chagrin.

"You're lucky I like these, fluff."

"Uh-huh. Like you could stop me."

Nick raised his glass to her, which Judy clinked with her own. "Touche, sly bunny."

They sat in companionable, if slightly ruffled, silence for a few minutes, sipping at their drinks.

"So," Judy said.

"Yes?"

"Do you like being outdoors?"

"I mean, it's better than being stuck in an office. Part of the reason I like walking everywhere."

"I meant more like being in nature, like out in the woods or something."

"I've… never been. Unless you count the R.D., or a city park."

"Really?"

"Really. C'mon, fluff, I grew up in the city with a single mom. Besides, I never exactly… made it into the Junior Ranger Scouts."

Judy blanched slightly, knowing how touchy a subject that sometimes was. "Oh shit. I'm sorry, Nick."

"Eh, it's not a big deal," he said. "How about you?"

"Being in nature is one of the things I miss most about moving into the city," Judy said. "All the wilderness, wide open spaces, and nature…" She took a deep drink. "I miss the night sky out in the country, too. There are so many stars missing here."

"It must be beautiful."

"It is! The air is so different, too. Clean and clear and fresh. The city is wonderful, but there are lots of things I miss."

"Like that creek you've mentioned before?"

"Oh, my Spot, you mean?"

"Yeah, the Zapanese maple and the little waterfall you told me about."

"...That was as much about carving out a personal space for myself in a huge family as it was anything else."

"I could see that. What do you like to _do_ in the 'outdoors'?"

"I like mountain biking. I left my bike back at the burrow, though, when I started at the Academy. Also backpacking and hiking."

"That all sounds very… unnecessarily strenuous," Nick said.

Judy laughed. "I suppose it might, if you haven't done it before. I'll have to take you sometime."

"...Will there be bugs?"

"Yup."

"And pooping in holes in the dirt?"

"Most likely."

"You make it sound like so much fun."

Nick finished off the Last Word and popped the cherry into his mouth, then placed the empty glass at the edge of bar. As if summoned, Andy appeared and took away the glass, then asked, "Another drink?"

Nick opened the menu and took another look. "A Vieux Carre, please."

Andy nodded and turned to Judy, who was just finishing her drink.

"Oh! Um. I'm not sure. You pick for me, ok?"

Andy pointed at the rocks glass. "Something a little sweeter, then?"

Ears tinting red, Judy nodded and handed the glass to him. Andy swept off to make their second round.

Nick drank from his water, watching Judy from the corner of his eye.

"So… what would a perfect day be for you?"

That question gave Nick pause. He frowned gently, though his body language and ears continued to look relaxed. A year ago, that would have been an easy question to answer: a lawn chair, some fresh blueberries, and money out of someone else's pocket. Now, though…

"I… think I might be having it," he said.

"You're… _not_ kidding," Judy said, as he shook his head at her tone.

"Nope. Despite the… _rocky_ start, this has been one of the best days I've had in a very long time."

"Better than graduating from the academy?"

" _One_ of the best," he said with smirk.

"Ok, but… perfect?"

Nick sighed. "I don't know anymore. I'm almost certain you'd be part of it, though." He looked over to her and flashed a toothy grin. "But I'm sure it doesn't compare to bagging 4 perps and an hour in the gym, followed by a spa night."

"Hey! You don't know that's my perfect day!"

"Sure I do."

Judy made an angry face at him, then broke out into adorable giggles. "Ok, fine. But that doesn't mean it won't change, especially considering that day doesn't include any mention of you."

She sat her muzzle in her paw, her elbow on the bar top, swiveling her chair to face Nick's slightly.

"Mmmm… who's your favorite author, Mr. 'I read a lot?'"

"Um, Jim Burro? I think. He's the only writer I really follow. He writes that series about a wizard in a modern city. I like a lot of authors, though."

"Urban fantasy, I think they call it?"

"That's right. Of course, it's not The Zootopia Criminal Code."

Judy laughed.

"You do read that for pleasure, right, Carrots?"

"Not _every_ day. Sometimes I read the Federal Criminal Code," she said, with a smirk.

A drink appeared in front of her, giving Judy a slight start. Nick, who was facing that direction, had seen Andy's silent approach and smiled at Judy's surprise.

"Cheese and crackers! How are you so quiet?" she asked Andy.

"It's noisy in here," he said with a wink, and pointed to the tall glass he'd placed in front of her. "Singapore Sling." It was filled with a pinkish-tan cocktail with a spiral of lime peel going down the inside of the glass.

"It smells wonderful," Judy said, and took a sip. Her ears, which had been tilted slightly back, came slowly to attention as she got a taste of the drink.

"Woooww…"

"Good?" Andy asked.

"Amazing!"

Andy set Nick's drink in front of him, in a rocks glass with a single huge ice cube.

"Enjoy, brother."

"I plan to."

"Hey Andy," Judy asked, "why do you call Nick 'brother?'"

"Ask him," he said, chucking a thumb over his shoulder as he walked away.

Judy turned to look at Nick. "So…"

Nick waved a paw in a dismissive fashion. "We worked together years ago at that liquor distributor I mentioned. He just started calling me that after we split a six pack one day after work."

"Oh."

"I know. Not terribly interesting story, but they can't all be."

Judy sipped at her delicious drink, thinking of another question to ask. She was beginning to feel the alcohol - the drinks were deceptively strong here.

"What's your guilty pleasure?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, don't be like that. You know what I mean."

"...You first," Nick said with sly smile.

"Alright, fine. I like pro wrestling."

"What, really?" Nick laughed out.

"Yup. Chalk it up to having too many brothers and not enough TV's while I was growing up."

"That's fair. Um… mine is romantic comedies. Especially the bad ones."

"No way!"

"I'm afraid so," Nick said. "I'm really just a big softie at heart."

Judy giggled sweetly. "Awwww…" she said, and laid a paw on his forearm.

Nick smiled and took a deep sip of his strong, sweet, amber-colored cocktail. When he looked back at Judy, he found her pose hadn't changed, and that she was beginning to look a little tipsy. He stared straight into her eyes, and she stared into his. Where amethyst met emerald they felt between them a growing sense of warmth, of falling into a shared hypnotic trance, butterflies and rushing undercurrents of emotion that words didn't properly communicate.

The trance was only broken minutes later when Judy reached the end of her drink, her straw slurping at the last few drops. She looked down at the empty glass in surprise, finally breaking eye contact. Nick smiled, and polished off his own drink. He dug out his wallet, dropped $60 on the bartop, and stood to leave, offering a paw to Judy. She initially refused it, sliding off of her bar chair; but when she found her feet a little unsteady, she instinctively grabbed for his outstretched paw. Nick took it and tucked her right paw into his left elbow, giving Judy a steady anchor to lean on.

{Bush - Glycerine}

The pair made their way out of Broken Branch and back into the rain, back under Nick's umbrella, back to his waiting M3. Nick opened the passenger door and guided Judy down into the bolstered seat, then closed the door behind her and circled around to the driver's door. He got in and started the car.

A soft song played on the radio as he drove out of the Rainforest District and into Savannah Central, towards Judy's apartment. They were both quiet, finding comfort in each other's presence, in the dark of Zootopia at 1:30am. The city whirled on around them, a relative storm of energy and other mammals which could not penetrate the peaceful eddy of Nick's car, and the space inside it Nick and Judy were just beginning to carve out for themselves.

For a little while they both just stole furtive glances, quiet above the sound of the engine and the radio, guiltily smiling when they happened to look at the same time and catch each other's eye. It was a game of admiration and secret delight, little tastes and scraps of pleasing sights. Her toned, grey furred thighs; his confident, strong paws on the shifter; her strong, muscled shoulders open to the air; the curve of his jaw, set in a slight, confident smile.

After a couple miles they crossed over the Little Amazoon, getting closer to Judy's apartment. On a whim, Nick reached across the center console and ran digit down Judy's ear - she made a cute honking sound and then moaned quietly, as Nick's paw ran down the back of head and around to stroke the left side of her muzzle. She took his paw in both of hers, yet again, and moved it to her mouth to kiss the palm pad. The contact gave Nick a tingly, electric feeling, and set his heart racing - he could just start to smell Judy's arousal and excitement as she continued to nuzzle, kiss, and lap at his paw, occasionally taking a digit into her mouth. As the scent of her grew in intensity, Nick could feel himself beginning to respond - his hackles raising, and a growing… _tension_ between his thighs.

It was wonderful and exciting, and Nick was reluctant to take his paw away from her. Unfortunately, as much as he adored driving a car with a manual transmission, it did have its drawbacks - yet again he had to pull his paw away to shift gears, this time earning a pout from Judy. As soon as he got his car back into a cruising gear, she just about snatched his paw back, this time clamping it between her thighs as she rubbed them together.

The heat of her skin and the feel of her soft fur rubbing against his paw was an elixir for distraction; ratcheting up his arousal to the point that he began to feel a little bit muzzy and light headed - a sensation he was very rapidly shocked out of as a loud horn went off what felt like inches to his left. Nick snapped back to reality and jerked his wandering car back into his lane, whipping his right paw back to the steering wheel.

As Nick's chest heaved from the shock, Judy blinked in surprise. After a few moments, Nick gave a wide-eyed, nervous giggle. He found that they were only a couple of blocks from Pangolin Arms, and so, he attentively finished the trip, pulling up to Judy's building with both paws firmly on the controls of the car. He turned to look at Judy, who looked rather contrite - although he could still clearly smell her excitement.

"Um. Sorry," she said.

"It's alright."

"Would you… like to come upstairs? With me?"

A series of interesting expressions flitted across Nick's muzzle: hunger, fear, desire, trepidation, warmth, uneasiness.

"I… think I'd better not."

"I'm not asking you because I'm tipsy," Judy said.

Nick snorted derisively.

"I'm not! I just… sleeping next to you earlier was really nice, and I… don't want this amazing night to end just yet.

Nick's paws tightened on the steering wheel until it creaked a little. He very pointedly kept his eyes forward.

"Believe me, Judy, there's a large part of me that would like nothing more than that." He sighed and looked down, and then into her eyes. "I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think either of us are… ready for where it could end up."

Judy looked disappointed.

"It's not you, Judy," Nick said softly. "Believe me - it's not you at _all_. This is all just so…"

"Fresh, and new, and scary," Judy finished, wearing a wistful smile. "I understand."

Then she leaped up, in sudden motion, and kissed him hard, wrapping her arms around his neck. The kiss lingered for most of a minute, and then Judy broke away, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Thank you, Nick. It was an amazing night."

"You have no idea," he said, looking at the ravishing beauty in front of him.

She winked and let herself out of the car.

"Good night, Officer Wilde."

"Good night, Officer Hopps. Sleep well."

"Oh, I will - after I work out all the lovely tension you've given me," Judy teased. She winked at him, then closed the car door, skipping to her apartment entrance. As she unlocked and opened the door, she looked back at Nick in his immaculate car. He blew her a kiss. With a final laugh and a twirl of her skirt, Judy disappeared into the building.

Nick sighed and leaned back into the seat. After a moment's thought, he put the car in gear and began driving towards the small warehouse he had a storage and repair bay for his car in. Too small for anything much beyond his own usage, he was able to rent it cheaply - luckily it wasn't far from his apartment building.

After covering his car and locking up, Nick paced down the street towards his building. He felt bad for turning down Judy's possibly veiled request, but he just didn't feel… ready to take that particular dive, given the potential consequences.

What he wanted was a day - just a day - to check himself before the proverbial wreck. The light of morning can reveal many things, as was so ably demonstrated to him not quite 16 hours ago. He sent a text to Judy saying something of the kind - that they should take Sunday to get themselves put together - and she agreed.

Nick pulled open his bedroom door, walked to his bed, and fell back on to it. He sighed, throwing an arm over his eyes. A huge grin slowly grew into place on his muzzle.

It really _had_ been an amazing night.

* * *

A/N - Hooboy. Foot dragging ahoy! Thanks again as always to my lovely editor/advisor, Fairlane302.

Interested in trying the real drinks Nick and Judy had? Here're the recipes:

Buffala Negra

1 1/2 oz. Bourbon

4 Fresh Basil Leaves

1 tsp. Turbinado Sugar

1/2 oz. Balsamic Vinegar Syrup

2 oz. Ginger Beer

Muddle the balsamic syrup, basil and sugar cube in a mixing tin. Add bourbon and ice and shake hard. Strain over fresh ice cubes into an Old Fashioned glass. Top with ginger beer and garnish with basil leaf. (2008, The Oakroom [Capone's old bar], Louisville, KY.)

The Last Word

3/4 oz. Gin

3/4 oz. Green Chartreuse

3/4 oz. Maraschino liqueur

3/4 oz. Lime juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail or coupe glass. Garnish with a cherry. (Early 1920's, Detroit Athletic Club)

Singapore Sling

1 oz. Gin  
1 oz. Pineapple Juice  
1/2 oz. Lime Juice  
1/2 oz. Cherry Heering  
1/4 oz. Benedictine  
1/4 oz. Raspberry Syrup  
1/4 oz. Cointreau

Shake all ingredients with ice. Pour into iced highball glass. Top with Soda water, stir, lime twist garnish. (Apx 1915, The Raffles Hotel, Singapore - this version The Oakland).

Vieux Carré

3⁄4 oz. Rye whiskey  
3⁄4 oz. Cognac  
3⁄4 oz. Sweet Vermouth  
1 tsp Bénédictine  
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters  
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Add all the ingredients to a rocks glass. Fill with ice and stir. (Supposedly created by the New Orleans bartender Walter Bergeron in the late 1930s)


	12. Chapter 12

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - An interstitial chapter. {Also a warning for those with sensitive ears, the first suggested track in this chapter is extremely heavy and may not be to everyone's taste.}

Again, feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music is available on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Gojira - Vacuity}

Nick awoke in his own bed for the first time in roughly 48 hours. A dream - or the memory of a dream - chased itself out of the rooms of his mind, leaving behind just a flicker of amethyst, and a hollow space in the bed beside him that some part of his subconscious insisted should be filled. This was followed by slight panic as Nick realized he was awoken by sunlight coming into his room - an experience mostly alien given his work schedule nowadays.

"It's Sunday," he reminded himself, and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't have anything he needed to be awake for. Not this weekend, anyway. Nick pawed for his phone on his nightstand, and once it lit up, he found it was 9am - hours later than he usually got up. Still, he had plenty of day to… do absolutely nothing with. He sighed again and rolled onto his back, dropping the paw holding his phone above his head on his pillow.

Staring at the ceiling, half-formed thoughts flitted through Nick's mind: 'what's Judy up to today? Why did I say we needed some time apart? I don't think I'm supposed to be missing her next to me this much… I wonder if she changed her mind about all this. If she was smart, she would have. Hope she didn't. What am I going to do with myself today?'

Seeking a distraction, Nick rolled over and pulled up Ewetube on his phone. He got a few minutes into an Ordinary Automobile review, before his thoughts drifted to Judy again: To the feeling of her fur against his; to her glimmering eyes; to her infectious pluck and her bright smile…

Nick realized that he'd missed the past few minutes of the video while buried in his twitterpated thoughts. With a huff of consternation, he switched over to a game, but again, couldn't prevent his thoughts from drifting back to simply wanting Judy.

Nick growled in frustration and tossed his phone across the bed. The whole point of today was to take a step back, to look at things more objectively without her maddeningly, delightfully distracting presence to derail his rationality - but it looked as if he could do that well enough all on his own. Nick sat up and dropped his foot paws to the floor, cradling his forehead. 'Step back, step back. Need busy work.' Sometimes there was no solution beyond using his paws. Nick stood up and retrieved his service pistol and tranquilizer gun from his uniform belt, walked into his living room, and pulled a maintenance kit out of a drawer in a side table. He promptly unloaded and disassembled both weapons on a cloth on his coffee table, and set about cleaning and oiling both. With his hands engaged he found it easier to mentally step back and look at his life, as work with his paws had always done for him.

'So.'

'Judy and I. I have no doubt I like her. Love her, maybe. And we certainly seem to be physically compatible, if yesterday is any indication. At least on a pheromonal, instinctual level. Though I worry about the specifics of… she's so _tiny_ , really, compared to… I wonder if I'll… fit.'

He shook his head, noticing his paws had stopped their work as thoughts of a moaning, shivering, rather nude bunny had inundated his mind's eye.

'Right. All females give birth. They're… stretchy. Enough about that. Practicality, practicality…'

Nick held the detached barrel of his pistol to his eye, checking the rifling.

'What would I want from that a relationship with her? That's really the question.'

It wasn't one he had the answer to. Not so concretely. What did anymammal want from a relationship, anyway? Companionship? Somemammal to build a life with? A chance to build a family, leave something for tomorrow?

Kits, at least, were a question already answered - barring some variety of unheard of miracle, they'd be adopting. Which was just fine - there were plenty of kits out there who needed love. And it wasn't out of the question to have donors or surrogates or some other modern science magic trick.

But that was jumping the gun.

Nick eventually settled on a set of definitions he was comfortable with: Judy was his best friend, his workmate, the guidepost he'd followed to his better self, and a mammal he was more than happy to have discovered a mutual physical interest in. Though they'd known each other just a year, it had been a year of happiness, friendship, and the earning of each other's respect. Everyday they relied on each other. When something happened to either of them, good or bad, and they needed somemammal to talk to, their first choice was each other. They had become effortlessly close - even after the initial struggle of discovering their friendship and compatibility.

That he would be a lifelong friend to Judy was a foregone conclusion, long before everything that happened yesterday had knocked all the details of their relationship for a loop. Now it seemed as if that friendship would become something far more precious and deeper than Nick had any right to dream of having in his life.

Nick racked his mind, but the difficulties he could foresee: society, family, work, intimacy, Judy eventually wising up and leaving him, the potential rigors of living together… Those were things they could work through. There wasn't any reason large enough that he could find to stray from the natural path they were on - one that seemed to be bringing them ever closer together.

With a sharp snap, Nick locked his Grrretta service pistol back together, and switched to cleaning his far-more-often used tranq gun.

The most startling thing to Nick was that the conclusion he'd come to didn't terrify him. This kind of openness, the vulnerability of opening himself up, bringing another mammal into his life… well, he'd been dumped by vixens before because he'd been too scared to do it, too ensconced in his mental fortress to let someone else in. But with Judy - that feisty little bunny - he knew it'd be alright. She wouldn't hurt him. He trusted her. Always had.

When it came right down to it, there was only one thing Nick was really worried about, and it didn't have anything to do with Judy at all: the biological vulpine life-mate mechanism.

Nick hadn't been exaggerating one little bit when he'd told Judy the night before that he'd understood having a choice taken out of your paws. If the conditions were right - hormonal balance in the womb, genetic predispositions toward hormone sensitivity, and some hereditary traits; a fox could easily find themselves permanently emotionally and physically fixated on the first mammal they mated with.

Most of the time, it seemed to work out - with mutual bonding or an equally infatuated partner. But modern vulpine courtship was built with an understanding of the risk that boundary could pose - because when things went wrong, they could become seriously awful: Nick had heard stories of vixens who found themselves bonded to rapists, their psyches torn apart by the hatred they had for the mammals their body demanded they needed. And he knew a tod who had bonded to a vixen who did not, and who eventually left him. Sometimes those foxes could rebuild, learn to ignore their hind brain instincts, and move on with their lives. But… they were never the same, and that drive never really went away.

That was most of why he'd left her last night, aside from concern she'd not want another alcohol-fueled mistake to worry over. It was impossible to tell beforehand if a fox had that mechanism, and it scared him. His choice could be stripped from him and his future, or at least some part of it, locked into a gullied path he didn't think he could climb out of. The odd thing about it was that, as frightened as he was, he was more concerned that Judy could be put in a situation where - through no fault of her own - Nick's mental and physical health relied on her having feelings for him in return. And Nick knew Judy - she'd stick it out, even if it hurt her terribly. Nick couldn't force that on her, take that choice away.

And anyway, it wasn't something he was willing to confront just yet. He didn't know the 'rules' for it, such as they might be, other than that sex was usually the trigger. That had already waited 33 years and several relationships without any real harm, and there wasn't any more need to rush into it now than there had been before.

Nick snapped the tranq gun back together, and walked back to his room to put both weapons back in his belt.

He stood in his room. Staring at his uniform belt. 'Like a jackass,' he thought. 'Well… the M3 did get rained on last night. I suppose I can wash it. Maybe I'll drive it to work tomorrow?'

Satisfied with his conclusion, and with images of Judy dancing through his head like sugar plums, Nick hazily got himself together for the rest of the day.

* * *

{The Tiny - Closer}

Judy stirred in her sleep, awaking on her side with a start and a distressed little yelp. Instinctively she scooted back, trying to get closer to the warm wall of red and white fur her still sleep-dazed subconscious insisted was behind her.

Of course, she found the bed empty apart from herself, and as her brain finally got to speed, she sighed and wrapped her arms around herself, as if sealing a hollow within. Nick's scent was still strong on her pillow and she rooted into it with her short muzzle, relaxing as she breathed it in. Cheese and crackers, she wished he was here.

The still recent - less than 24 hour old - revelation about Nick's feelings and hers had left her joyful but skittish. The whole thing felt very fragile, still just a wispy framework of an idea - Judy finally understood her own feelings, but Nick's confession was so unexpected and out of her idea of his character that it just… still didn't feel real with him missing from next to her.

Judy's eyes opened wide as that thought passed through her mind. Man, she must've had a crush on Nick a lot longer than she ever suspected if her subconscious had so readily made a space for Nick to be _missing_ from. In fact, she realized her mind felt clearer now than it had for months, the faint background buzz of cognitive dissonance she hadn't even realized had been there finally lifted. Nick's professed feelings might be too new to feel completely real to Judy - more like a dream that's just a little too good to be true - but at least Judy was sure of her own now.

It was probably for the best, though, that Nick had acted the gentleman last night. She hadn't exactly been in the… clearest state of mind, alcohol and her lust contributing in equal parts. Nick had apparently taken to heart the distress she'd professed to him about alcohol tainting how she'd first expressed her feelings for him. Judy was glad that he could be so honorable even (and especially) when she wasn't at her best, now that he understood that. Then Judy remembered what he'd said over lunch about fox life-bonding, and it very suddenly dawned on her that Nick probably had his own worries that were at least as important the honor of a bunny doe who was more-or-less throwing herself at him. She sighed. The whole thing felt as if perched on the edge of a cliff, with only unknowns far below.

She didn't doubt Nick's sincerity. Judy had trusted Nick with her life for a long time now, had trusted him with her feelings and her secrets; he was her best friend. If Nick told her something and wasn't teasing her, he meant it. Really, her doubt in the morning stemmed more from just how easily they seemed to fall together than anything else: it seemed too easy, and nothing like that ever felt real afterward. Judy pondered the many ways things could become difficult - what would happen with work, her family, the idea of kits… what it was she even _wanted_ from a relationship, if one came to be.

That question gave her pause, because it just felt so… premature. She had barely come to understand that she _wanted_ Nick. Thinking about what she would want them to create together was just… pure speculation at this point. What she did know was that she wanted to be closer to her best friend, and that was enough for now. She pulled in a deep breath, her body equally relaxing and yearning for Nick's presence as she breathed in the scent he'd left on her pillow. Judy's body reacted to it, slumping bonelessly back into her bed. She giggled at herself. She was acting like a silly little doe kit with her first crush. She could see in her mind's eye his easy smile and playful green eyes, and it brought a warmth bubbling up in her heart.

For a moment Judy considered if having this strong a response to a male's scent - particularly _this_ male's, a predator and a fox - was really healthy. It was just pheromones, she knew, but her body reacted so easily and readily to it, it almost felt like it could be a drug. The world felt fuzzy and soft and safe from within her Nick-scented blanket cocoon. Judy giggled. 'I guess I'll start worrying if I get withdrawals,' she thought. Still, it gave Judy pause; she was forced to wonder exactly how she'd ended up responding in the opposite manner to how she was supposed to react to a fox's odor.

Thinking about how foxes and rabbits usually got along brought her parents to mind. 'Mom and dad are going to _flip_ when they find out about this. Even if they work with Gideon - I wasn't ever interested in _dating_ him… Gosh, and it'll ruin Dad's wish he get more grandkids.'

Realizing she wasn't going to be getting any more sleep, Judy sat up and looked over to her alarm clock. It was about 10 o'clock. Wondering what Nick found to do with his day, she grabbed her phone, only to find six messages from Francine. Somewhere in the tornado the day before had turned into, Judy had completely forgotten she'd promised to go to yoga with Francine. The first few messages were asking why Judy was late, the next few were a little upset about being blown off, and the last two were concerned for her safety.

Judy's worries about Nick and her parents were quickly chased out of her mind by the more immediate problem of Francine's concern. Judy quickly sent an apology to her, although one lacking any details about exactly what had interrupted their plans. Francine messaged back soon, saying she was glad that Judy was alright, and admonishing her for missing their yoga session. Stretching herself out from the stiffness of sleep, Judy realized that a work out was probably a good idea today considering she'd skipped her usual weekend regime. At least the gym at the precinct was free and open 24 hours.

Forgoing a shower given she was about to work out, Judy threw together a gym bag, tossed on her barely worn athletic clothes from yesterday, grabbed a protein bar, and headed out the door.

* * *

His car clean, Nick had decided that the best use of the rest of the day was some time at the gym and the range, and so found himself at the precinct on Sunday.

Loathe though he was to end up at work on his day off, the ZPD had both a fitness center and a shooting range that was free for officers to use, and Nick wasn't the kind of tod who could turn down something that useful at the low, low cost of nothing. Nor could he strictly deny that it was where the vast majority of mammals he'd consider his 'friends' would be.

He'd already run into Fangmeyer at the range, and gotten his fair share of mutual ribbing and competitive target shooting in. The tiger was annoyingly good with a long-arm and fixed targets, but with pistols and moving targets, Nick's faster reflexes gave him a definite edge. While ZPD officers rarely, if ever, used their lethal weapons, the huge diversity of the city demanded that they have excellent aim, particularly Nick and Judy. Most of the mammals in the force could safely handle a sidearm powerful enough to be lethal to even the largest mammals without pinpoint accuracy, although the truth was that the best answer to mass was usually more of it.

A smaller mammal like Nick, though, had a more limited selection of weapons he could safely handle, and the truth was that you had to be very, very good shot to make a relatively small pistol like his Grrretta a useful tool in every situation. There was a reason he and Judy held the marksmammalship high scores at the range: for their own safety, and that of the public's, they had no other choice.

Nick was glad that he'd had no opportunity or reason to even unholster his lethal sidearm in the six months he'd been on the force. He knew Andersen, the big white lug, hadn't fired his outside of the range in almost five years. Some of the largest officers chose to not even carry one. For his part, Nick hoped he'd never have to use his. But, when one mammals simple accidental misstep could be assured lethality to another, or a perp brought lethal force into play, some means of evening the scales was necessary - particularly if the delay of a tranquilizer would be too dangerous. That equalizer rode on Nick's hip, and he made sure he knew how to use it.

Nick was just finishing showering after his workout, when he decided that a spell in the precinct's dry sauna sounded like a good way to end the afternoon. The ZPD had a lot of excellent facilities, but it was, after all, a public program - and tax dollars could only stretch so far. Most of the precincts couldn't manage more than a weight bench, although all ZPD officers were welcome to use the central facilities. Thus, while Precinct One could afford a sauna, they couldn't afford _two_ \- the male and female locker rooms had to share.

Nick pulled open the door the sauna, which was solid to keep in the heat. The hot, unfinished cedarwood room was dimly lit, smelled dry and spicy, and had a bench going almost all the way around. Nick walked across the small box of a room, towel tied around his waist, and turned to take a seat facing the door. As soon as he did he saw a small bundle of towels on the bench next to the door. Grey bunny ears tipped with black stood tall above Judy, who sat with her arms folded and her eyes closed.

"Hey Nick," she said, and he started a little, considering she'd never open her eyes. The room smelled strongly of cedar and covered up his scent and hers.

"Uh. Hi."

Judy chuckled and said, "I know what your pace sounds like by now," as she opened her eyes. Nick could see the mirth in her eyes as she found Nick mostly nude and gave him a once over.

The whole idea behind the day had been taking a little time apart from each other to try and think things through. Despite that (or perhaps _in_ spite of it), they'd ended up in exactly the same place as each other, and probably both nude under their towels, to boot. Nick certainly was.

He couldn't help it. Laughter came bubbling up out his muzzle. Judy looked on with a bemused smile as Nick crossed his arms and said, "We're quite the pair, aren't we?" wearing a bright smile.

Judy tilted her head, not completely understanding.

"We both agreed that a day to ourselves was a good idea, just to end up doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same place at exactly the same time. Oh and both naked," he added.

Judy giggled, then stood up. She walked across the sauna to Nick, saying, "My time's up anyway, Slick," and gave him a peck on the cheek, which set his tail to wagging.

She turned to leave and said from the doorway, "See you tomorrow morning, Nick."

"Bye, Judy."

Absentmindedly, Nick's paw drifted up to the spot where she'd kissed him. A big smile unfolded on his muzzle and butterflies played in his stomach as he thought of Judy.

Outside, Judy leaned against the sauna door, her head tilted down. She put a paw up to her lips, and giggled as she closed her eyes and shook her head, then launched herself off the door towards the female locker room.

* * *

A/N - Welcome new readers! Much to my delight, Undercurrents was featured on Zootopia News Network with some kind words from one of my favorite fic authors, YFWE. Hope you guys are enjoying things so far. Comments and questions are welcome!

Special thanks as always to my editor, Fairlane302, for his advice and hard work. It would, be a, much werse story without your help ;-)


	13. Chapter 13

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - This chapter focuses on our main characters going back to work - something very different from previous chapters. As such, this chapter starts out very different from the others.

An index of police 10-codes is at the end of the chapter for clarity.

Feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music can be found on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Seatbelts - Piano Black}

5:00AM

MONDAY

GRAND PANGOLIN ARMS

SAVANNAH CENTRAL, ZOOTOPIA

Dreams of silken, cream fur swirled through her subconscious - instinctual and primal, stoking the fires of the most common drive to all things. Sleep but temporarily stilled the mind ever churning, with images and scents imagined - memories soporific and enticing in equal measure. If only she could dwell in this place eternally; her cocoon of pleasurable repose, filled with all of _him_.

But, such a fragile perfection was not to last.

Shrilly, the clarion call of life on-schedule, time measured and not contemplated, the grand societal clock that ruled above biological, cried forth - seeking the ears of one Judy Hopps.

As a less-than-tactful fox was apt to note, ears such as hers made a large target for such a call. And thus it did find them, reaching through into Morpheus' realm with a long arm of responsibility, seeking to pluck her from her place created and pull her into wakefulness.

And so it did.

Perhaps not so quickly as that halcyon first day full of brightness and bias,

But a paw shut off the alarm.

And a mammal groaned.

And foot paws swung out of bed.

And knuckles rubbed against eyes, cleaning out sleep.

And a rabbit huffed excitement.

And grabbed her shower bag,

And walked down the hall.

Roll Call, 8am.

Another chance to make the world a better place.

Cascading water easing fingers of heat into stiff muscles, loosening sinews for the day to come. She rests her head on the cold tile, ears splayed up the wall.

Wind tunnel dryer fluffing fuzz, spraying out from her in manic tufts. A paw smoothes over, into the pale blue bodysuit, the vest and the badge, the ever important badge.

Her belt goes on. Tools of the trade, strapped to her hip.

A protein bar snagged, to be eaten on the way.

Oversized foot paws tromp down rickety green stairs.

Out to the street, skipping past kits, swiftly down into the earth to meet waiting trains.

Muffled announcements and the scents of other mammals. Unavoidable closeness of urban life.

Earbuds in - a bouncy soundtrack to match the listener.

Back into the pale spring sunlight and around Precinct One to the motor pool lot, employee's entrance.

A small crowd of policemammals stand around a parking spot, sounds of approval coming from within. Between legs she sees the deep silver of Nick's car.

She shakes her head with a smile, ears swaying, and walks past into the Precinct.

Everything sized up. A place for larger bodies. Through cubicles many times her height. At hers, fresh paperwork, but the morning ritual awaits.

Into the bullpen.

Paw taps of camaraderie down the aisle. A familiar bushy red tail awaits, in a chair large enough for two. Building excitement - partner, confidant, friend - boyfriend?

Unknown. New feelings stir.

She climbs up next to the tod, his nose deep in a Snarlbucks cup.

"Good morning, Nick," Judy says as she settles into place.

"Morning," he replies.

"Drove your car to work today, huh? There's a crowd out there admiring it."

Nick quirks a questioning eyebrow at her, deep in his coffee.

"Oh come on! You had to know, and that's totally why you drove it today. Admit it!"

"I'll admit no such thing! I just felt like driving to work today."

"...for the first time in the year I've known you. _Sure_."

Nick chuckled, but didn't disagree.

They sat quietly side by side, sharing the huge chair as was their custom, and waited for the Chief to appear so the day could start. Without conversation to distract her, however, Judy found herself becoming hyper-aware how close she was to Nick. His spicy, musky scent wasn't that strong in the morning - but her nose easily separated it out from the other scents in the room. Like an addict, her brain had figured out that scent was what it wanted - and it found it. Of course, since she was so full of morning perkiness, it didn't relax her like it had over the weekend - instead, it started the faintest tickle of arousal. Suddenly, an electric, tingling awareness of Nick's presence sprung up. It fed into her hind brain - reminded her how easy it would be to bridge the small, professional distance between them and cling to him; stroke his fur, kiss him deeply… it was as if a magnet tuned to her body was sitting beside her, demanding she come closer. She could almost feel the energy, rippling between them physically; a buzzing arc of attraction impossible to ignore.

After a scant few seconds Nick turned and looked down at her, his eyes wide, apparently feeling the same. He brushed her paw with his as he slouched in the seat, done with his coffee, and they both started and shivered. Her fur rose slightly as his bristled against her arm, the electricity between them peaking and sparking at the slight contact. Judy gulped and whipped her head to look forward to avoid falling into his beautiful green eyes. There was no way to ignore the brewing tension, or the desires she had to deny in the professional setting. All she could do was acknowledge it and work around it, like a pit trap in the middle of a living room.

* * *

Goddamn, she was _right there_ and Nick was so aware of that fact that he was having trouble thinking of anything else. Her perky tuft of a tail, her long ears, her velvety fur and those big sparkling amethyst eyes; all he could feel was the incomprehensibly strong buzzing force between them; he lost track of everything else. It felt like trying keep magnets apart: the closer they got, the stronger the attraction was, until it could be resisted no longer and they snapped together. Nick's awareness of Judy next to him utterly consumed his thought process, and he was just starting to wonder why he wasn't ravishing the cute, perky little bunny when Higgins called the room to attention and derailed that particular train of thought.

Chief Bogo burst through the side door to much pounding of tabletops. "Alright, alright," Bogo said as he reached the podium, the noise continuing unabated.

"SHUT IT! Sit down!" The Chief paused as his officers settled. "I've got two items on the docket today. First, the detectives need some patrolmammals to help with door-to-door work in Tundra Town, for an ongoing racketeering investigation."

Judy and Nick glanced at each other, very briefly. Despite the huge distraction of sitting next to each other that morning, that item gave them both pause: they knew exactly who the subject of the investigation was. Nick just hoped he wasn't about to be roped into something that could get him or Judy into trouble with I.A., or worse, iced.

"Second," Bogo continued, "I will be… nearby Little Rodentia working on getting our second rodent Precinct established, so nobody mess up so badly I get called back to the office. I would be… _displeased_."

The patrol officers snickered collectively.

"Assignments! Snarlov, Anderson, report to Detective Taltrees at Tundra Town Precinct, on the plainclothes radio channel. Everyone else, standard patrols."

As the assembled officers stood and shuffled toward the exits, Chief Bogo spoke up again. "Hopps, Wilde. My office."

Nick and Judy, who had been headed towards the back door, shared another anxious glance, and turned around to follow Bogo.

Judy's mind whirled in circles of worry: 'How does he _know_? Did we give something away? Wait, there aren't any _rules_ about dating colleagues, right? Why does he need to talk to us? Oh god, he didn't find out about that _dress_ , did he?'

Nick watched the broad shoulders of Bogo pacing in front of him. He could positively smell Judy's fretting right alongside him: 'We're dead. He knows. We are so _fucked_. How did he find out? We're dead. We're so dead.'

Following Chief Bogo, the hallway seemed to stretch on forever under their footpaws. After what felt like an eternity - but entirely too soon - the Chief reached his office door and yanked it open, preceding them in. The Chief sat down behind his desk and placed his chin on his folded hooves. There was only one chair in front of the desk which Judy and Nick - reluctantly - were forced to share. They hesitantly clambered up to the seat, keeping a professional distance from each other. Sure enough, however, the tension in the space between them sparked up again almost immediately, despite the utter inappropriateness of the situation. No one should be contemplating ripping off the clothes of and ravishing the mammal sitting next to them while sitting in front of their boss's desk.

Chief Bogo sat and observed them. For about 15 seconds, Bogo stared, Judy fretted, and Nick fought both the urge to sit on his paws to try and keep them to himself. As the conflicted, tense silence dragged out Nick opened his mouth to ask why he'd brought them here, but didn't get so much as a word out before Chief Bogo interrupted him:

"That group of mammals whose… Club you broke the door down to, have decided not to press charges."

The Chief saw the pair in front of him visibly relax as their fears of what Bogo _could_ have found out did not come to pass. Relax a little _too_ much, in his mind, for mammals that had nothing to hide.

"Were you two expecting something worse?"

Nick's ears flicked further back on his head as he said, "Ah, no, sir. That's fantastic news. Even if they'd never have won due to the exigent circumstances, ah-ha-ha…"

The habits of a good detective - which Chief Bogo was, years ago before he moved further up the ranks - died hard: he chose not to respond and let the silence drag out until it became uncomfortable, waiting to see if his impetuous rabbit or his fast-talking fox officer would break first and admit whatever was really on their minds. Once it became evident nothing of the sort was forthcoming, Bogo sighed and turned to the paperwork littering his desk. "You're probably right, Wilde. You two did the right thing, either way. Dismissed."

Bogo didn't even have the chance to look all the way up before his door was swinging shut behind their hasty retreat.

* * *

Nick hurried down the Precinct corridor behind Judy, paws stuffed in his pockets. Judy was almost jogging in front of him in her rush to get out of the building.

"So uh…" Nick began, but Judy shushed him while glancing behind her.

"Later."

"Carrots, someone's definitely going to think something is up if they see you that wound up."

"Like who?"

"Bogo definitely did."

Judy paused and whipped around to face him, her frustration clear on her face.

"No matter how much better at I am at talking to mammals than you, you can recognize text book interrogation techniques just as well as I can."

Judy paused with her mouth open, then smirked and pointed past Nick to his tail, which was puffed out and lashing.

"Speak for yourself, Slick."

Nick looked down at his tail and spat a curse at it, hurrying to catch up to Judy.

Out in the motorpool lot, Judy clambered up into, for the first time, the passenger side of their cruiser. Nick smiled and circled around the huge crossover. He pulled open the driver's door and reset the seat and controls to "medium size," so he could get in without undue contortion.

As Nick got himself situated and started the car, Judy flipped on the radio and held an open paw, palm up, out to Nick.

"Yes?"

"You keep music on your phone, right?"

Nick nodded, and handed his phone over, unlocking it with a paw pad print. Judy plugged it into the built in car charger, as usual, but she also pulled it up on the stereo, and the music Nick'd had on last started up.

{FAILURE - Dark Speed}

Judy tapped a paw-foot to the beat as Nick piloted them out of the Precinct lot and into the rush hour traffic of Downtown. Another car, somemammal from the night shift just getting off of patrol, swung into the lot. Fangmeyer waved from the driver's seat as they passed each other by. As they pulled into the traffic flow, Judy snagged the radio mic and pressed the broadcast button.

"Dispatch, Car Zulu-240. Going 10-8."

The daytime dispatcher's responded over the radio: "Car 240, Dispatch. 10-4. Good hunting."

Judy smiled and hung up the microphone down on the center console. Her paw brushed Nick's, which was sitting on the gear change lever. There was a small spark of energy between them, that field of tension springing up again, and Judy became instantly _aware_ of just how close to each other they were. Nick glanced over, peeking at her from the side of his aviators, and grinned, his sharp white teeth showing. Judy's breath caught to see them, a strange mixture of attraction and primal fear swirling into a charged desire to have him _use_ them on her which blew all other thoughts out of her mind. She blushed deeply and her ears came to attention as she stared at Nick.

He cleared his throat. Here in the confines of the cruiser, they both found the scent of their respective partner inescapable.

"I know I'm good looking, Carrots, but we are at work."

If it were possible for Judy's blush to deepen, it did. Her ears drooped back as she mumbled an apology.

"It's okay, fluff. I feel it too."

"The… electricity - or whatever - when we're close?"

"That? Yeah, totally."

Nick ran a paw up her still-extended arm, giving her shivers and a tingly feeling that did not fade until long after his claws had passed through her fur. Then he seized Judy's paw where it rested on the center console, and lay his arm up against hers. A spike of warmth and a trembling power shot through her body; the scent of him and the sudden rush of endorphins from the prolonged contact made it feel almost as if she was holding a live wire, not the paw of a handsome fox. Her breath was stolen away from her, and she heard Nick gasp, felt the smooth muscle under his fur tense in response to her. It was just then that she happened to look up, and saw through the haze of attraction and desire that Nick was about to veer into oncoming traffic.

"NICK LOOK OUT!" Judy screamed.

Nick let out a yelp and tore his arm back to haul at the steering wheel. The tires let out a screech as he darted back into their lane. Shaken, Nick put on the car's flashers to clear traffic, and pulled into an alley.

"Cheese and crackers!" Judy exclaimed, paw resting on her heaving chest.

Nick panted right along with her, the adrenaline rush tingling in his extremities as it faded.

"Nick… what exactly made you think giving in to that tension while you were driving was a good idea?"

"I-I thought… I thought if I stopped resisting, maybe it'd be like letting some pressure out. Or something. Like taking your digit off the end of a hose."

"I don't think that's how this works," Judy said, biting her lip. Gosh, she wanted to be touching him again.

"I didn't know. I've never felt this kind of thing before."

"Me neither. Then again I've never dated anyone as close to me as you are… or who did this to me just from holding paws," she said, and gave him an adoring look.

Nick smiled back at her, his tail thumping against the seat.

Judy sighed, frustration tingeing her voice. "We don't have time to be doing his right now," she said. "We're supposed to be on patrol."

Nick nodded in agreement, a disappointed frown on his muzzle. He put the car in gear and drove down the alley to the exit out to Alpine Avenue at the far end. Judy scooted all the way over to lean on the passenger door, trying to put more space between them.

Whether it was the scare or the increased distance, they both found their heads a little clearer - the sexual tension a bit less distracting. Of course, tiptoeing around a pit trap doesn't make it disappear: they found that the longer they were in the car together, the stronger the force of magnetic attraction seemed to get, eventually bridging the space Judy had put between their bodies.

They tried to make conversation - Judy telling stories from home, trying to find new things to ask Nick - anything to distract from the monotony of patrolling an incredibly safe, boring district. Inevitably, they found themselves trapped in lingering stares and ever more elaborate fantasy scenarios. But, no matter how distracted they were, when work finally popped up in the form of a car accident between a bull in a pickup truck and a moose in a sedan, they sprung to work efficiently and effectively as always. Judy jumped onto the radio:

"Dispatch, Car 240. 10-23 for 10-50 PD at Hill and Bonatree. 53, 58, 51. Will stay on scene. Possible 52."

"Car 240, Dispatch. 10-4. Will send a wrecker, standby on 52. Copy?"

"240. 10-4 Dispatch."

Judy hopped out of the car and approached the accident victims as Nick maneuvered the cruiser to block traffic in one direction, then put it in park and jumped out to direct traffic from the other streets. All accomplished without more than a glance to communicate. Neither of the accident victims were injured, so they were able to wrap up quickly - a ticket for the bull, who had run a red light and caused the accident; both cars towed away, and back to 10-8 on the radio.

Another traffic stop, writing a report for a liquor store robbery, and responding to a domestic rounded out the morning. It would have been positively dull if the energy between them, the temptation to haul the objects of their desires across the car and ravage them, hadn't been growing steadily the entire time. Despite and attempts to distract, they'd fallen silent hours ago in the face of the mental stress caused by resisting the sexual tension between them.

By lunchtime, collars had been loosened and the atmosphere in the car was positively crackling with energy. Judy reached for the radio and called in their break:

"Dispatch, Car Zulu 240. Going 10-7."

"Car 240, Dispatch. 10-4. Have a good lunch."

Judy hung up the radio and turned to Nick, speaking to him in what felt like the first time in a great age. "Where do you want to go for food?" She watched his ears pivot to her voice, his whiskers tremble and his tongue dart to wet his lips. She felt herself staring, but found it difficult to look away. Nick steadfastly looked ahead, the steering wheel tight in his paws.

"Your choice, fluff."

Judy shook her head sharply to clear it, and then took a look outside the cruiser. As luck would have it, they were passing one of her favorite restaurants in the Downtown district: Triple C Deli. The three C's standing for, of course, Carrots, Cake, and Coffee. Nick was just going to _love_ this.

* * *

Sure enough, the rabbit food had put little more than a grumpy expression on Nick's face, although he'd put away a large ginger-sesame veggie burrito without any of his signature complaining. Of course, lunch hadn't done a thing to help dissipate the field of energy between them.

Judy was getting a little frustrated. She was at her dream job, sitting next to the partner she'd pretty much demanded to get - exactly where she wanted to be. And yet her brain was busy spinning her in circles over some boy like a high school girl with a crush. It wasn't that she was _upset_ that her damnedable hormones had her so wound up over Nick - far from it: some corner of her mind was actually _elated_ that her instinctual response to the tod she was interested in in every other way was so strong. But the fact remained that she was at work and didn't need the distraction - and neither did Nick, for that matter. She still wasn't sure _why_ there was such a tense, almost physically perceptible electricity between them, one which only seemed to spike higher when they gave in and actually touched each other - but there it was, making life difficult.

Judy sighed out her consternation. Across the car, Nick looked over at her. This… wasn't going the way he expected it to. Yes, adding a new aspect to relationship like this was supposed to be difficult - but it shouldn't have been _this_ difficult. He could feel Judy simmering away, her bad mood just brimming above the hormonal pull of wanting her body close to his.

"Judy…"

"What?"

"Are you ok?"

"I'm fine."

"You're a bad liar."

"Look… I'm just-"

Judy was interrupted by the radio: "Dispatch to available officers. Car Tango-145 requesting backup at Nut and Cap streets, 10-15. Appears gang fight. Possible 10-32."

Nick looked over at Judy. Acorn Heights was a little out of their patrol loop, but… "Want to take it?"

"Totally!" Judy answered, and grabbed the radio while flipping on the flashers and siren. Nick took off on the Otterdam street they were currently on , headed south.

"Car Zulu-240, Dispatch. 10-69 on backup for Tango-145, 10-76. ETA 7 minutes."

"Dispatch, Car 240. 10-4."

A handful of other cars from Precincts in Savannah Central, the Palm District next door in Sahara Square, and Downtown also confirmed they were inbound to the scene on the radio, but Judy and Nick were by far the closest. They were the second car to arrive and it was immediately evident why the officers had called for backup: there was only a rhino and a boar - one set of partners - dealing with what looked like a large scale hoof and paw fight between a group of deer wearing orange on their antlers and clothes, and a bigger herd of peccary wearing red. The two officers had apparently stopped a bigger fight for now, but every time they turned their backs, a few unseen members from the groups would start another scuffle.

{Rage Against The Machine - People Of The Sun}

Nick drove the cruiser up onto the sidewalk in front of the courtyard the confrontation was brewing in. As he and Judy stepped out of their cruiser, the stymied brawl finally overflowed into violence: orange and red marked herbivores - almost 50 of them altogether - charged into a melee, the rhino and boar officers submerged up to the waist in fighting mammals.

Nick gave Judy a worried glance as she drew her tranq pistol. This might've looked like just a schoolyard brawl, but Judy knew those colors - the deer were part of a whitetail nationalist gang, and the peccary were all Barrio Mezca - and the combination was a recipe for disaster. All the situation needed to get deadly was some idiot mammal to pull a knife or worse, a black market gun - and knowing the reputation of the groups fighting in front of her, it was a matter of when, not if. Judy nodded up to Nick, knowing he was thinking the same thing without having to ask, and drew in a deep breath. She shouted out, shockingly loud for such a small mammal:

"CITIZENS! CEASE FIGHTING AND DISPERSE OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO RESPOND WITH FORCE!"

Still standing outside the tumult, Judy gave them 5 seconds before discharging her tranq pistol into the nearest fighting pair. Nick quickly tagged the peccary opposite the deer she'd hit, and they swiftly reloaded and began taking out mammals in pairs. The rhino who had been first on the scene seemed to be a little paralyzed: he was too big to really be hurt by the smaller mammals in the fracas without concerted effort on their part, and they only seemed interested in hitting each other. However, his size meant there was big risk of hurting the mammals who hadn't yet touched him if he physically intervened. Nick, who had finally put a name to the bull, called out to him:

"Odobo! Gather the sleepers!"

The rhino jerked his head over when he heard his name, and nodded in answer. He started wading towards the street, pushing mammals aside, when one of the deer he brushed away produced a length of pipe from somewhere and hit Odobo on the back. A vicious, somewhat relieved grin appeared on his face, and he turned around and decked the mammal.

"Oh, shit…" Judy heard Nick mutter as the rhino began flinging animals out of his way. Once he got to the edge of the whole mess, he started zip-cuffing the unconscious mammals and pulling them aside. More weapons were being produced - things were going in a bad way, and fast. The boar officer in the middle of the fracas, seeing that his partner had been attacked, attempted to restrain and cuff a peccary, and immediately found himself surrounded by mammals now focused on dealing damage to _him_. He was pulled down into a circle of red-adorned mammals and the flashing of bats, pipes, and other street weapons were all that could be seen.

Nick grabbed his shoulder mic and shouted into it, "240, Officer down! 10-34 Nut and Cap!"

Nick and Judy began working towards him in a determined, nervous charge. Two more cruisers pulled up almost simultaneously, disgorging a pair of wolves, a lion, and a ram. They also began tranquilizing any mammal moving - at this point, about 14 mammals were on the ground, knocked out and being restrained by officer Odobo.

Judy was taking mammals to the ground with fierce, leg-numbing joint kicks on her charge deeper into the fray to where she'd seen the boar officer go down. Nick, slightly behind her, was putting tranq darts in mammals by simply stabbing with them, leaving a path of unconscious gang members behind them. Just as Judy reached the circle of mammals the boar had gone down in, a shout rang out far to her left in heavily spanish-accented english: "HE'S GOT A GUN!"

Nick and Judy both immediately dropped their tranq pistols and drew their sidearms, as did the recently arrived officers. Variations of "DROP YOUR WEAPONS!" and "GET DOWN OR I WILL FIRE!" echoed out as some mammal screamed into the radio, "322 Confirming 10-32!" The rhino, who apparently chose not to carry, began plowing through the crowd to where the shout had come from.

Most of the mammals hit the pavement as the officers demanded they put their hands on their head. A couple did not, and found themselves looking down the wrong end of a service pistol wielded by a seriously aggravated police mammal. The boar officer was finally revealed as the peccaries around him lay down. Judy leaned down to check on him, and found him shaken, bloody, and bruised, but not seriously injured. He staggered to his feet and made his way to his cruiser, talking in his radio the whole time.

With nods and hand signals, the recently arrived officers surrounded the mammals and kept them down with the threat of their sidearms. Four others, including Nick and Judy, holstered their weapons and began zip-cuffing the perpetrators, working systematically across the courtyard. A few of the conscious ones resisted, mostly with Judy, expecting the small bunny to be easy to gain advantage over. They found out the hard way that was no easy task, earning knockout blows and submission holds for their troubles. Nick finished up with the last of his, maybe five minutes after they'd drawn their sidearms, and walked back to Judy, who was standing next to the rhino, Odobo. He caught them mid conversation "...really, I've heard wonderful things, but watching you work is something else, Officer Hopps." One of wolves walked up soon after, holding out both Judy and Nick's tranq pistols.

"I hope someone called the paddy wagon," Nick said as he took his back.

"Or three," the wolf added. He extended his paw to Judy and Nick in turn for a shake. "George Pinegree. You guys do good work, just like I've heard."

Judy nodded at him. "Thanks. Did anyone find the firearm?"

"Proudmane found some kid with an airsoft gun - it looked real, that's for sure, but he wasn't going to hurt anyone unless he shot you in the eye," Pinegree replied, hooking a thumb toward the lion officer.

Cruisers continued to arrive, until there were about 20 officers at the scene, ambulances to cart off the injured, and the desired three paddy wagons. Each suspect was searched and had their rights read to them as they were sent away in various vehicles, with shouts of "Preserve the buckland! Deer land for deer!" and "You can't take the barrio, puta! Comer mierda y morir, cerdo!" the whole way.

* * *

In the end of it all there were 9 mammals with serious injuries that had to be taken to the hospital, and 40-some with minor injuries the Precinct jail nurses would treat. Only the one boar officer had been hurt, and not badly. Thankfully all of it had been in Savannah Central - Chief Bogo would get the final reports, of course, but it hadn't been in the Downtown district the Chief of Police traditionally had direct supervision of. Not that he'd be terribly happy his officers had been involved at all - but at least it was in Savannah Central, and he wouldn't get the brunt of the paperwork. There were probably some press conferences in his future, though.

Judy sat in the passenger seat of their cruiser. She let out a long sigh - she'd heard that some of the species gangs in the area were causing more trouble nowadays, but this was the first time she'd dealt with it firsthand. Nick got in on the driver's side a few minutes later. He sat down and looked at Judy, a strained expression on his face. A moment later the radio crackled to life:

"Dispatch to Car Zulu-240, 10-62."

Judy grabbed the radio as Nick looked over.

"Car 240. 10-4 Dispatch."

"Dispatch, Car 240. Switch to channel 17."

"Car 240. 10-4 Dispatch."

"Wonder what this is about?" Nick asked.

Judy shook her head, her ears drooping back, brow furrowed, and switched the car radio over.

"Car 240. 10-2. Copy?"

The voice of Chief Bogo came over the radio. "I copy, Hopps. Sounds like there was a big mess down there."

"Nothing that we couldn't handle, sir."

"I don't doubt that," the Chief said, a smile audible in his voice. "You're 10-42 for today. Write your reports and head home."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. I like officers to have a bit of down time after a mess like that - Johnson and Wirewool are about to get the same message. Remember, the department psych is available if you need her."

"Yes sir."

"Good job, Wilde, Hopps," the Chief said, and then the channel went dead.

"That's the day then, I guess," Nick said.

"Yeah," Judy said.

{Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun}

Nick backed the cruiser off of the sidewalk, flashers still on, and merged into traffic, headed north towards Precinct 1. They drove in near silence, save for the subtle hum of the tires and rumble of the cruiser's engine. The tension between them was still present - although it had a gentler feel to it now, not the demanding physical draw of the morning.

The streets drifted by in a haze of mental exhaustion. Nick pulled into the Precinct motor pool not 15 minutes later, passing his car on the way in. He parked the cruiser, shut it off, and dropped his head into his paws, covering his eyes. Judy watched him, her ears droopy, as they had been since she saw the boar officer get pulled down earlier.

"Sheez that was scary," Nick said.

"Yeah it was," Judy agreed.

"Um…"

"Yeah?"

"Can I, uh… come over there?"

Judy didn't exactly smile, but she did look relieved. "Yeah, I'd like that."

Nick climbed over the center console and sat down next to Judy, who scooted over - before she got too far, though, Nick picked her up and set her in his lap, hugging her tightly. Surprised for a brief moment, Judy was a little stiff - then her arms wrapped around him in return. Nick felt her give a single brief, choked, sob. He sighed deeply, leaning back, cradling Judy to his chest. They stayed in that position for a few minutes, their breathing synchronizing over time. Eventually Judy spoke up, her voice wavering slightly:

"Thanks, Nick. I guess I needed that."

"Of course," he replied, and kissed her head between her ears - which changed the meaning of what they were doing in Judy's mind. Not in a bad way, just a… different one. It reminded her that she was being comforted by a mammal who she also now thought of in very erotic ways - and thinking that, she could almost feel the spark between them start to rise up. She coughed quietly to get Nick's attention, and moved to get out of the car, so he let her go. Nick climbed back to the driver's seat, got the car key, and followed Judy back into the precinct.

* * *

A couple dull hours of paperwork later, Nick heard Judy call out goodbye as she passed his cubicle. She was always faster at this nonsense than he was - and that day was no exception. For a moment Nick thought about calling out to her, asking her to wait for him - but when the tension and trouble they'd had all day popped into his head, he thought better of it. Judy would have stayed around and waited if she wanted to see him; she had before. If she was rushing out, it was because she wanted the time to herself. He sighed and turned back to his work. Tomorrow was another day. Maybe it'd be a better one.

* * *

A/N - Well. It sure has been awhile, hasn't it? I promise the wait should not be as long this time. Which I always say, but I've got a head start this time!

Special thanks as always to Fairlane302 for his support, advice, and editing work.

INDEX OF 10-CODES:

10-2: Signal good (standing by)  
10-4: Acknowledged; confirmed  
10-7: Going out of service (clocking out)  
10-8: Going into service (clocking in)  
10-15: Civil disturbance  
10-23: Arrived at scene  
10-32: Mammal with gun  
10-34: Riot  
10-42: End tour of duty (taken off duty by superior)  
10-50: Accident, PD Property Damage  
10-51: Wrecker needed  
10-52: Ambulance needed  
10-53: Road blocked  
10-58: Direct traffic  
10-62: Reply to message  
10-69: Message received  
10-76: En route to _

More at: copradar com/tencodes/#google_vignette


	14. Chapter 14

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - Things are going to be getting a little steamy up in this fic from here on in. For the squeamish, the goal is not to be explicit - but this story will be working for its M rating. If you'd be comfortable watching an R-rated movie, you'll find nothing offensive here.

Also, I'd like to make a small plea and thank you for reviews – I appreciate them greatly.

Thanks as always to fairlane302 for his advice and editing!

Feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music can be found on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Stone Temple Pilots - Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart}

Nick had met an awful lot of mammals in his life, and there weren't many who would've called him honest.

Still, he at least had the wherewithal to admit to _himself_ when he'd gotten something wrong.

And good god had he been wrong about today being easier than yesterday.

It'd started out with a terrible night of sleep interspersed with the kinds of dreams Nick couldn't remember having since puberty - the sort of torrid, explicitly sexual stuff that could only be dreamed up by a brain positively drowning in hormones. Of course they'd all been about Judy - Judy dancing so close she was practically _on_ him; Judy stripping off her clothes in front of him; Judy in heat, pouting; Judy teasing him to the point that he ached; Judy surrendering herself to him… on and on, waking up over and over: Judy, Judy, Judy. He'd even gotten out of bed that morning completely aroused - which hadn't happened to him (without a female to trigger it, at least) in almost 20 years.

And the mammal who had his libido so ratcheted up, his hormones so ragingly out of whack - was in the driver's seat of their cruiser, practically within arms reach. The tension between them had sprung up again as soon as they were in the same room at work, and had just gotten more unignorable. Her scent was strong in his sensitive nose - she smelled sort of nervous, he thought. Gosh, she was beautiful - warm grey fur, voluptuous hips; delicate, velvety ears… Nick had never been with a lapin lover, and he was eager - _so_ eager - to try. He was so wrapped up in desire for her that he'd almost forgotten his fear of life bonding.

"Ummm, Nick…"

"Uhubbawha? Ahem. Yeah?"

"...You've been staring at me for the last 5 minutes."

"What? _Me_? No, no I wasn't. I was watching the scenery!"

"Out of my window?"

"Y-yeah…?" Nick said. 'That's a pathetically lame excuse for an _amateur_ ,' he thought, feeling embarrassed - but apparently not embarrassed enough to derail his addled brain from focusing completely on his object of desire.

Judy pulled up to a stop light and looked over at Nick. He was still staring at her, looking… hungry. His eyes seemed a little glassy, and there were circles under them - he looked exhausted. Which, if her frustrating night was anything to go on, meant he probably hadn't gotten much sleep, either. As she watched him, his tongue drooped down out the side of his slightly open jaws, wavering slightly as he panted.

" _Nick_!" Judy hissed at him. He blinked, his eyes focusing, and sucked his tongue back in.

"...Yeah?" he asked at length.

"Snap out of it! We're on patrol!"

Nick shook his head fiercely, ears flapping. "Yeah. Yeah, we are. Right," he said, and turned to look out his window on the passenger side, resting his head on his right paw.

Which of course gave Judy the perfect opportunity to stare at Nick. Her eyes traced the elegant curve where his jawline flowed into his neck. The pull of his uniform shirt around his lean, muscled shoulders. His tail, puffed and tense, twitching on the seat next to him. His spicy musk, swirling into her sinuses, tickling her arousal and spiking the sexual tension she could feel between them.

She saw his eyes flick forward, then over to glance at her.

"Uh. Carrots?"

"Yes?"

"It's green."

Judy jumped slightly, looked forward with a blush creeping up her ears, and took off from the light.

Judy wasn't bothered that the handsome, lean, strong fox tod she wanted to- that she liked, was looking at her. It gave her a thrill to be stared at so longingly, almost possessively - as if she was the only thing in the world he could see. And the way he looked at her was hungry in an almost… predatory sense. Which wasn't scary to Judy; it added to her excitement in a breathless sort of way. She trusted Nick, knew he would never hurt her. What she _didn't_ trust was herself in this moment.

Unbeknownst to her, Judy's night had been just as bad, and her morning equally rough as Nick's - not that she'd admit it to him if she did know. She'd rushed out of the Precinct the day before because she'd found herself so physically wound up that she was worried she'd be unable to restrain herself if she saw Nick. Judy had spent about an hour "working" on herself that evening trying to burn off her excitement, and eventually, after turning herself into a hot mess, she'd succumbed to exhaustion. Her night after had been a sheet-knotting series of steamy dreams starring Nick, which had left her just as aroused when she woke up as she had been when she left for home the day before - a zero sum game.

Judy was at a loss - she couldn't remember her libido ever going this crazy without a partner present to cause it. And while Nick might have been here, now, it didn't explain the night before. In her current state she felt as if it would take but a touch from him to transform her absurd levels of mental arousal to physical.

Then Judy ran a red light. Nick noticed immediately - but Judy, lost in thought, seemed not to.

"Judy?"

"Huh?"

"You just blew through that red."

Judy blinked, trying to engage her brain. "I… did?"

"You're kidding me. You didn't _see_ it?"

She shook her head, an extremely distressed expression on her face. "...I guess it was empty?"

Nick nodded. "We got lucky. _Very_ lucky. Um… I think I should drive, maybe?"

"No, I'm good."

"... _Are_ you?"

Judy was quiet for a moment, then made a distressed sound. "No… No I'm not. I think you should probably drive," she said, and pulled over. She and Nick switched seats; Judy hopped into the passenger side while Nick adjusted the driver's seat to 'medium size' before getting in. He put the cruiser in gear and pulled back into traffic, shoulders drawn tense from the field of attraction he could practically feel emanating from Judy.

A tense silence fell over them. Nick turned right onto Damcrest Drive, the street that marked the edge of their patrol area, so he could loop back north. They both jumped when the radio crackled to life:

"Dispatch to available R.D. units: Backup, 10-25. 12 vehicle 10-50 PD, PI Westbound Amazoon Expressway at Vine."

Judy had flipped on the siren and flashers before the dispatcher had even finished the call, and was reaching for the radio when Nick moved to intercept her paw with his own. Judy positively flinched away from the contact.

"Judy. That's halfway across the city and _way_ out of our patrol."

Judy held her left paw in her right, as if it were stung. Nick turned off the lights and siren, and glanced over to Judy. "Did you even hear what broadcast was?"

She turned his question over in his head, and found she couldn't remember. All she could recall was wanting something - anything - to distract her from his presence in the cruiser. She buried her face in her paws.

Nick saw her embarrassment plainly. It was sort of early, but they weren't getting anything done in this state, so he asked: "How about we get some lunch?"

Judy nodded weakly, her ears drooping as their eyes briefly met and sparks shot between them. She grabbed the radio and keyed the mic:

"Dispatch, Car Zulu 240. Going 10-7."

"Car 240, Dispatch. 10-4."

"Where do you want to go?" Judy asked.

"I don't care. You pick."

Judy looked around outside the cruiser, barely noticing where they were at. "How about there?" she said, pointing at a sushi bar coming up on the right. Nick glanced over, following Judy's arm and carefully avoiding looking at her otherwise.

"You sure? It's going to be a disappointment…"

"I'm sure. And I'm buying. I still owe you for Saturday."

"Whatever you say, Carrots."

"What do you want?"

"Um… a poke bowl would be good."

"Po-kay bowl? What's that?"

"Like a… raw fish salad. Sort of. It's Pawaiian."

"Oh..."

Nick chuckled. "If you're not sure what you want, just get a bentō lunch box. They should offer a herbivore one if you want."

Judy nodded, which Nick did not see as he pulled into the alley nearest to the restaurant Judy had picked. He put the car in park as she jumped out.

* * *

As the door closed behind Judy, Nick let out a long, strained sigh.

Was it possible she just didn't _know_ how much of a temptation she was, just sitting next to him? Thinking back to how effortlessly she'd beguiled him Saturday night at the bar when she switched their drinks, Nick was pretty sure she did. Not that that made it any easier. Judy wasn't doing anything intentional. His… hind brain just wanted her too much.

Before he could get a handle on it, Nick's train of thought fell over a precipice: he found himself consumed by thoughts of Judy in ever increasingly erotic states. Like being buried in an avalanche, the onslaught of lust-fueled images filled his senses with white noise. The real world fell behind a cottony blanket - the noise of a car door opening barely registered, until _that_ voice cut into his lust addled brain and merged in with his fantasies.

* * *

With takeout in hand, Judy walked back to the cruiser. She was so frustrated by the morning - living her dream, working in the city at the job she wanted, and stupid Nick was all she could think about - like the moon eclipsing the sun of her life. She was shocked she hadn't felt her heat start yet, as twitterpated as she felt.

Judy pulled open the cruiser door and Nick's scent blasted out at her. Her response to it halted her in her tracks; she felt her heartbeat begin to speed as the tension in her shoulders melted away. She wrenched herself back into motion, climbing up and pulling the bag of take-out with her. She saw Nick tense slightly, but he didn't respond otherwise. Judy placed the take out bag to her right and opened it up, taking out Nick's order. She held it out to him.

"Nick. Here's your lunch."

He didn't respond. She turned to look at him.

"Nick! Your _food_."

{Gary Numan - I Am Dust}

As if he was in a trance, Nick slowly looked over to her, right into her eyes. She saw the pupils in his lovely green eyes dilate, his nostrils flare - and suddenly he was across the car, pinning her fore-paws against the window, kissing her as Judy moaned and wrapped her legs around his waist.

Liquid heat poured into her belly as Nick pulled off her flack vest. She curled her paws into his chest fur as she undid his shirt buttons, their tongues and lips dancing in torrent of warmth and lust. Judy pulled herself harder against him, as if unable to be close enough. Nick's right paw, having finished opening Judy's vest, hooked into the upright collar of her bodysuit and yanked the neckline open. Where his claws trailed across her shoulder, they left behind fiery, tingling lines of sensation. Judy reflexively tilted her head to give Nick better access.

Releasing her mouth, Nick licked and kissed his way down her jawline to her neck. Then he growled, deep in his throat, and leaned back to look into Judy's eyes. She saw the ferocity in his eyes, the look of a hunter who had cornered his quarry; her eyes widened as she found she couldn't quite beat back the faintest tremble of fear. Then he snarled, and his snout snapped down, seizing Judy by her neck and left trapezius. She yelped in surprise, then positively melted and moaned out as the gentle pressure-almost-pain of Nick's teeth burned spots of intense pleasure into her brain. She could feel Nick growling - deep, and almost inaudible - when it suddenly transformed into a purr, almost like a feline. She could feel his hot breath on her neck, his tongue lapping at her neck inside his jaws, as she breathed in his scent. His paws moved, one gently stroking her ears, the other cupping her butt, supporting her weight. Judy shivered in pleasure. The warmth in her stomach began flowing lower to pool in her core and radiate out, suffusing her body in a languid _heat_. She moved her left paw further down Nick's body under his shirt, stroking his skin under the russet fur of his right side with her blunt claws.

It was just then that Judy happened to open her eyes and look left, catching a moose walking by the alley's opening behind the cruiser.

All of the burgeoning warmth inside her snap-froze into ice.

"Nick, stop," she said.

Nick growled subaudibly again, and tightened his jaws just a little. Judy shivered and let out a pleased gasp, and then hit him in the ribs.

"Nick, _you have to stop_. We're in _public_! We're in uniform and someone could _see_ _us_!"

Nick's eyes finally focused as he snapped back to reality. He released his jaws and shook his head, drawing in a heaving breath, like a mammal coming up for air in the ocean. He sat back on his haunches in the too-large seat, creating some separation between them. He looked dazed to Judy, who was velcroing her vest back together.

"Hwooo…" Nick breathed out.

"Yeah," Judy agreed, then said, "Your shirt…" while pointing at the buttons she'd pulled apart.

Nick shook his head again, in a very canid manner, trying to get his mind put together. Then he started to button up his shirt.

"...Sorry."

Judy smiled. "It's ok."

"You're kidding."

"It's alright. Really."

"Um. I… _bit_ you."

"And you didn't unbutton your own shirt. _It's ok,_ Nick. I promise."

Nick continued to look abashed and a little mortified, as he found his take-out bowl on the center console behind him, then shifted his weight back. Judy stopped him before he could move back to the driver's seat.

"Come here," she said, and patted a spot in front of where she was crouched on the passenger seat, leaning against the passenger door. Nick gave her a questioning glance, and she smiled in response. Nick cautiously sat back down, legs forward and Judy plunked down onto her butt, throwing her legs over Nick's and scooting closer to his torso. Judy turned to find her miraculously undisturbed lunch and brought it to her lap.

"I'm sorry, Judy. I don't know what came over me."

Judy giggled. "I wouldn't mind if it came over you again, Slick. Y'know, somewhere more private."

Nick froze, his poke bowl in paw. "You… enjoyed that?"

Judy shivered a little against him, and said, "I did. This is totally the wrong time and place, but I probably would've had trouble wanting to stop you if it hadn't been."

A delighted grin slowly grew into place on Nick's muzzle.

"Well. Okay, then," he said, and pulled the top off of the takeout bowl in his paws. Judy spotted what looked like a mash of raw tuna, rice, and lettuce.

"Oh geez. I dropped that, sorry."

Nick laughed. "You didn't do anything; poke always looks like this." He glanced at Judy's lap, where she was opening up a flat box. It revealed a divided tray with a half dozen different, small dishes - including some raw fish. Judy tucked in.

"You were right. It's not as good," she said after a few bites.

"Told you."

"It's not _bad_ , just not as good."

After a few companionable minutes of shared sushi consumption, Nick looked up and blinked in surprise.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"That… tension, is gone."

Judy cocked her head. "Huh. It is!"

"Of course, we are _touching_ each other right now…"

"Oh, hush," Judy said, and batted him on the shoulder.

* * *

Frustratingly, it had turned out Nick was right - after they finished lunch and moved back to their respective seats in the car, the electricity between them sprung up almost as strong as before. The afternoon became a blur of simply driving around their patrol area, being visible, and doing their best to ignore the intense distraction they caused each other. It was a completely boring day - to the extent that they could concentrate on it. More than likely, a number of lucky mammals got away with moving violations that day.

Amazingly they made it to the end of their shift without any further incidents - and without anything to report, their desks would be miraculously clear of paperwork. Nick parked the car, and Judy, somewhat anxiously, moved quickly to leave. The feeling between them peaked and surged as she moved farther away from Nick. Running on a hunch, he spoke up:

"Judy?"

"Yeah?" she asked, sounding relieved, pausing with her paw on the open door.

"Would… would you like to come over tonight?" he asked her. "I could give you a ride," he said, and hooked a thumb at his car, which he had driven to work again that day.

Judy hesitated, a worried expression on her face. "Are you sure?"

"I…" Nick paused. He thought again about how his unknown physiology might lock them both into a situation they may have no escape from. Then he thought of nights he'd had in the past, vixens he'd satisfied, without putting himself - or them - into a difficult situation. He nodded.

"I'm sure."

Judy's face bloomed into a warm smile, dawn breaking after a gloomy night. "Okay," she said.

Nick smiled back, a genuine, relaxed grin of eager delight.

And like that, the anxious force pushing them towards each other was gone. Their attraction remained; but the physical need to get closer ebbed away as soon as they knew they'd have personal time together soon.

Judy giggled, and stepped down to the ground, closing the door behind her. Nick followed suit. Judy hesitated outside the cruiser, before abruptly turning and starting towards where Nick's car was parked. Nick stopped her with a question:

"Not even going to check your desk?"

Judy turned her head and gave him the most deliciously devilish grin. "It can wait. I'm… eager to leave today."

Nick's tail began churning the air behind him as his mouth lolled open in a canine grin. He darted ahead of her to reach his car first, and was inside and had it running before she reached the door handle.

* * *

Judy looked around the small garage/work area Nick parked his car in, making note of all the tools and equipment he had neatly tucked away in the space.

"All of this for one car?" she asked.

"Yup," he replied. "I've thought about getting another project to work on, but the timing was never right."

Nick circled around the car and wrapped his arms around Judy's shoulders. He kissed her head between her ears and said, "But that's not what's on my mind right now."

Judy turned inside his arms and kissed him on the lips, the kiss swiftly deepening until they were both out of breath and reaching to take off clothing. Judy broke away, chest heaving, and said, "Maybe we should get back to your apartment."

Nick's eyes took a moment too long to focus on her, his mind elsewhere with her in his arms and his nose full of her scent. "Uh, right. Yeah. I'm just down the street," he said, and stepped outside, waiting for Judy to exit to pull the steel roller door down and padlock it. Judy reached out to take his paw as they walked the few blocks to Nick's apartment building, digits intertwined.

As they walked, Judy tried to think of something to ask the newly-willing-to-disclose tod whose paw she held, but the butterflies of excitement in her stomach were far too distracting - as was the desire to pin him to the nearest available wall and kiss him silly. She giggled and skipped.

Nick looked down at her as she bounced, delight and restrained hunger in his eyes. He didn't _think_ this was a mistake - more of an inevitability, given just how physically attracted to Judy he felt - but that didn't make it any less anxiety provoking. He tried to think of something to say to her, racking his mind for words that would fit the situation - but the walk was too brief and the sly fox's brain too addled by the bunny next to him to produce anything useful. All too soon the entrance to his building was in front of them, and Nick had to dig out his keys.

The stairs in his apartment building were worn, creaking wood, the varnish almost completely rubbed away in the middle of the treads, but they didn't shift around under footpaw like they did at Judy's place. They made the climb up to the sixth floor, around the corner, and to Nick's dark painted door. He unlocked it, stepped inside, and held the door for Judy. Once she stepped in he pushed the door closed, locked it, and turned to face his apartment.

That was when Judy launched herself at him. Nick's back and head hit his door with a thump, Judy's lips pressed against his in a heated kiss. Her paws were twisted into his collar, her knees against his chest, as Nick blinked in surprise at her sudden action. After a few moments he began kissing her back, his paws moving to support her weight. She wrapped her strong legs around his waist as he put his arms under her.

"Are bunnies- always this- forward?" Nick gasped out between kisses.

Judy leaned back, looking into his eyes. "Nick… I feel like I'm going crazy… I can't remember ever wanting _any_ mammal as much as I want you right now," she said.

"I always knew I drove you nuts," Nick said as he staggered towards the bedroom. Once inside he turned around and sank down onto the bed. Judy leaned back, her weight falling more into his lap. Nick took the opportunity to pull off her flak vest as she untucked his shirt. He lifted his arms to pull it off, shaking his head, and she buried her face in his chest fur, breathing in his scent, scratching her blunt claws into his back and side. Nick could smell how aroused she was - the scent had just been growing stronger since she'd pounced on him at the door. He took one of her ears gently into his mouth, running his muzzle up and down it's length. Judy's breath caught, distracted, as she unbuckled his belt and worked on getting his pants off. Then she heard an uncharacteristically frustrated growl from Nick.

Judy leaned back again, Nick's teeth meeting with a soft snap as her ear was pulled from his mouth. Nick's paws were at the zipper fold of her one piece. He'd undone it, but found it only made a hole big enough to wriggle out of - not one suitable for another mammal to remove the thing from the wearer. She giggled and pushed off the bed, standing up so she could undress. Nick followed suit, stepping behind her to hang his service belt on a hook. He pulled off his pants and underwear, took a deep breath, and turned around.

{Hans Zimmer -Rain (Blade Runner 2049 OST)}

Judy was standing between him and the bed. She was nude, clasping her paws in front of her. She looked nervous, but Nick could easily see and scent how excited she really was - the flush of her upright ears, her fast beating heart, her twitching nose. The sight of the beautiful creature before him made his heart feel as if it were swelling - a choking, almost sad tightening of his throat. She was ethereal and brave, a vision too delicate for the world. He wanted to protect her, cherish her, show her how much her light filled his heart, pushing away shadows in the dark corners.

"Well…" she said, with a nervous little smile, "this is me."

She watched Nick look her over. The warmth he had been nibbling at, encouraging, the past few days had finally blossomed in Judy; a languid heat had suffused her body. A faint flow of air moved through her fur like a caress, so sensitive was her skin in that moment. He seemed so present, as if he glowed, stood out from reality. She knew he must be anxious. She could see Nick was as excited as she was - his shallow panting, his hackles raised, his tail puffed out and swaying behind him; and another, more obvious sign between his legs. He was big - possibly not for a fox; definitely compared to her - but not terrifyingly so. She could imagine how he would fill her and was taken slightly aback by just how strongly she suddenly wanted him to.

"You're beautiful," he said, sounding like he'd just discovered a secret treasure. A smile grew onto Judy's face.

Nick stepped closer to her, putting his paws on her shoulders. He drew them together and kissed her. His paws began exploring as hers came up to his chest. She let out a moan as one of his paws went back to her ever-sensitive ears, while the other trailed a claw slowly down her spine, ending the tingling line down her back by grasping the twitching tuft of her tail. Judy gasped against Nick's lips when she felt his digits grip her tightly.

"Good?" he asked.

"Very," she said, her paws trailing designs his chest.

Nick moved his snout across Judy's cheek and down her neck: kissing, nibbling, and licking his way to where it met her shoulder. He marveled at the feel of her velvety fur against his, the play of her muscles under his ministrations. Then for the second time that day, he leaned lower and gently bit the curve of Judy's neck. She let out a cry of pleasure, shivering against him as she felt the pressure of fox teeth against her skin.

Nick had almost forgotten his earlier worries about the night when he suddenly felt Judy's paw grasp him down below. With a renewed surge of anxiety, he used his grip on her neck and his greater size to maneuver them onto the bed, laying her down and pulling himself out of her reach. She let out a pitiful sounding moan as he released her neck. Inch by inch he trailed his snout down her body, kissing and licking as he went. In the face of her almost blinding physical need, Judy responded strongly to seemingly small touches.

His paws and claws stroked and held her as he drifted down her curvaceous, toned form, pausing on the swell of her bust, her flat tummy; before he finally knelt back between her legs. Paws on her knees, he gently pushed her thighs open. Her scent, strong and intoxicating, filled his nose, and he leaned down to give her a different kind of kiss.

Judy jumped slightly when his cold, wet nose bumped her, but it was quickly replaced by the warmth of his tongue. Judy had worried over what it would be like to be with Nick almost since she'd figured out she was interested in him - his anatomy was surely sized to fit his frame, not hers. But his tongue - oh his tongue! She'd never given much thought to the things one could do with a vulpine tongue, but Nick was giving her a most amazing introduction to the possibilities their size difference could create. She moaned in pleasure, writhing, her paws knotting into the blankets beneath her. After the past few days it took very little to push Judy to her peak, and she soon cried out, her body tensing and shivering in release.

"Ohhh, Nick…" she moaned, "Oh cheese and crackers… don't stop, please don't stop."

She could feel his breath against her as he chuckled. She didn't know how one mammal's tongue could be in so many places, doing so many things, but she did know she absolutely didn't want it to end.

With patience and gentleness, Nick eased her through the ecstasy of one free fall of pleasure and up the slopes of another, plunging Judy almost too soon back into the storm of euphoria. She gasped and cried out his name, breathless, her legs tensing, toes curling - and still he lapped and stroked her, building the tension immediately back up even as her last release was barely fading.

Her body tensed - it was too much, too fast - she tried, feebly and half-heartedly, to push Nick off. In response he pushed his advantage, delighting in her outsized response to him, how he responded to her pleasure. His paws snaked around her legs, grasping her hips from underneath, and he pulled her closer, his jaws opening wide. Judy felt his teeth on her lower belly; the points of pressure combining with the more intense sensation the closer position offered him to push her over the biggest cliff yet. Her whole body tensed, her legs shaking, and she curled up slightly, her paws seizing on Nick's ears as they came into reach. She felt more than heard a pleased growl from him - and still he did not let up. Again and again he brought her to her fall, vulpine tongue working magic on her. Eventually, in one final seizing, her voice weak from cries of delight, her body went limp.

Nick rose, asking "Judy?"

The only response he got was a whimpering and a listless shifting of weight. She seemed insensate.

Nick chuckled, and then found himself increasingly aware of his own problem. Still nervous about the potential consequences, he quietly stepped away to the bathroom, to take care of himself.

* * *

Judy drifted back into awareness as Nick picked her up, pulled back the bedding, set her down, and slipped into the bed behind her. She squeaked and yawned, feeling pleasantly rubbery and soft, completely relaxed, and let out a happy sigh as she scooted back to curl up against his chest. One of his paws came down to hold her, and the other circled up from beneath, pulling her close. Nick's tail curled up in front of her, which she happily took into her paws. She could hear and feel Nick purring against her back. He was right in the place he was supposed to be.

Judy's weight settled against him, and her breathing slowed and evened out in Nick's embrace. There was no hollow - she was present, bringing with her a sense of complete serenity in his mind. She slept in his arms, a potent soporific if there ever was one. Barely awake and swiftly drifting off, Nick nuzzled Judy between her ears and mumbled out, almost incoherently, "I think I might be in love with you, Carrots..."

In her sleep, Judy clutched his tail tighter.


	15. Chapter 15

Undercurrents - a Zootopia FanFic by The Cubist

A/N - I'm thinking we'll rise again.

One of the strangest things about writing is how much characters gain their own life and tell you what they want to do. Forcing them into places they don't want to go just… doesn't work. Hence the trouble I've had the past few months - my head hasn't been a place that cheerful, impetuous Judy or a learning-to-trust, fast thinking Nick wanted to be. And rather than try and force them to, I decided to step away from the keyboard until it felt like I could write them again.

It felt like the right time for me to come back to them.

I'm sorry you had to wait so long.

Obligatory end-of-chapter R-Rated smut warning. Those with sensitive constitutions may wish to look away.

Feel free to ignore all {soundtrack suggestions}. All music can be found on YouTube, and a curated playlist can be found at

tinyurl com/undercurrentsmusic

Use a period rather than a space.

* * *

{Feist - The Water}

Judy opened her eyes to an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar bedroom.

Not so unfamiliar was the scent it was absolutely doused in - Nick's - nor the snoring presence of the fox in bed with her.

Familiar.

That was the right word, and absolutely not the right word at the same time.

Alien.

That, too, was the right word, and absolutely not the right word.

Familiar, Alien.

Alien & familiar.

How could something be both at the same time?

It was as if she'd always woken up here, next to him - but she knew it was the first time.

A brief spell of panic lit in her stomach as she looked around for a clock - a radio on the nightstand behind Nick said 4:38am in large green numbers. Roll call was at 7:30 - which meant she still had plenty of time. It was then she noticed she was still naked from the night before. Naked, in bed with a fox, in his bedroom, who she'd let - no, asked - no, pretty much _forced_ into a… situation the night before. Had she cornered him? She knew Nick was worried about the consequences of sex. Maybe she'd just taken it too far, and he had to do what he did to defend himself from her advances. Still… it had been… well, amazing. He was ferocious in pursuing her pleasure, insatiable until she'd gone blank from it. Judy still weighed whether he'd done it because he had to, rather than because he wanted to, but… here she was, and here he was, the morning after.

Nick whimpered in his sleep. He had been sort of sprawled out on the oversized-for-Judy bed, a little distance between them. He started to almost whine, turning and reaching towards her. It was completely adorable; and since he was in such a defenseless state, probably a reliable indicator of his true feelings. Just for a moment, Judy felt trepidation over their shared nudity - but only a moment. She scooted close to him, throwing a paw on his waist and using the other to bury her nose in his creamy chest fur. Nick made a contented noise and stilled, his arms closing around her, his breathing slowing back into the steady rhythm of sleep.

His scent was somniferous, and the worry of waking up late that had briefly panicked Judy was chased from her mind as she sunk into a blissful doze in her fox's arms.

* * *

The alarm went off about 20 minutes later, jerking Nick from his sleep. He was immediately aware of another mammal in the bed with him, and in his sleep dazed brain, his instinct to defend his den from another mammal started to go off - until Judy squeaked and nuzzled deeper into his chest fur, as if she couldn't get close enough to him. He felt his heart swell at the sensation, his instinctual response abruptly flipping to protective. He reached over and shut off the alarm. Judy stirred but did not wake, her face scrunching up adorably as she curled herself against him. Nick marveled at her presence next to him. He should have felt put off, she should have been scared, the whole scene should have ended in a police report - if not a blood bath.

Nick snorted out a breath of laughter. No doubt in that scenario, he'd be the one in pieces on the ground as Judy stood, drenched in not-her-blood. The image of a rabbit drenched in fox blood brought into his mind's eye an angry looking Stu (with a shotgun) and a terrified Bonnie Hopps. He groaned.

Bonnie and Stu might have had a pretty progressive attitude towards predators, as far as rabbits from as deep in the country as Bunnyburrow were concerned, but having one - a fox, no less - nude in bed with their daughter? That seemed a bridge too far, at least to Nick, and the spike of anxiety the thought gave him threatened to push through the bliss of the moment. Not to mention the way his body responded to her - too easily, too greatly; a constant temptation to put them both, potentially, into a life-long conundrum. He groaned, the anxious worries beginning to rise above the enjoyment of Judy being next to him. He made to move a little further away, but instead found himself staring down at the adorable bunny cradled to his chest. She was too cute for for words. Nick sighed, and tightened his arms around her. None of his worries changed how important a part of his new life Judy was.

At his motion, Judy stirred, her ears perking up and bapping Nick's nose as she woke up and yawned. Nick blinked and screwed up his eyes at even a soft impact against so sensitive a spot, but smiled down at her all the same.

"Good morning, beautiful bunny," Nick said. His voice rumbled against Judy's paws and cheek, roughened from sleep.

"Hey…" she replied. "What time is it?"

"5."

Judy let go of Nicks fur, fisting her paws and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "...only 20 minutes..?" She asked herself quietly.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," she replied. She looked around the room curiously, quickly waking up all the way. "I don't think I've been in your bedroom before, Nick."

"Probably not. It's a fox thing - being territorial about your den."

"What, really?" Judy asked.

Nick nodded, the motion causing his muzzle to rub on Judy's ears.

"I know you prefer living alone, but I thought that was just a personal choice."

"Well, it is, but not _just_. Any fox would probably go crazy if they had to share a den with as many other mammals as bunnies do. The only mammal a fox would willingly bring into their den is their mate."

There was a brief pause. Then Nick's eyes went wide as he realized what he'd said. "Uh, that is, I mean-" he stammered out, as Judy's expression curled into the self-satisfied grin she always wore when she knew she'd gotten the best of him.

"Is that so, Nick?"

"Uh…"

"I'll have to remember that," she said, and gave Nick a kiss on the lips, which he did not respond to.

"...coffee," Nick said.

"Hm?"

He pulled his arms up to point two digits at his head: "Morning. Stupid Brain. Coffee. No more talk, need coffee."

"Ok, furankenstein's monster."

Nick rolled his way off of the bed and on to his feet, walking with his arms stretched out and knees locked. "Uuunnnnnngghhhh… Coffee…"

Judy giggled at the tableau. "Truly, the poor peasants will be running in fear of the pantsless terror assaulting their village."

Nick gave Judy a dirty look, and pulled the blanket off of his bed, wrapping it around his waist - leaving Judy suddenly very chilly under just a sheet.

"Hey!"

"Problem solved," he said with a smirk, and marched through the bedroom door towards precious, life giving coffee.

* * *

{jinsang - morning.}

Judy walked into Nick's retro, red black & white kitchen to find him - comforter draped around his waist - pouring a cup of coffee. He added sugar, and turned to face Judy while taking a sip.

"Hey," she said, a nervous smile on her face.

Nick raised his eyebrows, not interrupting his caffeine intake. A couple of nights on Nick's couch over the past year had shown Judy that he was always like this in the mornings: useless until he had his coffee. Being a naturally vespertine mammal must be a pain, Judy thought, with having to force yourself awake while your instincts are screaming that you shouldn't be getting up for another 12 hours or so.

"Um. Do we have time to go to my place before work?"

Judy was carrying her bodysuit and all of her gear under one arm, wearing a t-shirt she must have gotten out of his dresser. It seemed to Nick that he should be bothered that she'd gone through his stuff, intruded further in his Den; but he just… wasn't. In fact, in his oversize-for-her Toha Heavy Industries T, and with ruffled facefur, Judy had a distinct 'freshly tumbled in the hay' look that Nick found… rather appealing. There was a delightful thrill to seeing her in his clothes, a sense that she was his, so to speak, and _wanted_ to be.

"I'm guessing you want me to give you a ride, judging by your professional choice in attire."

Judy at least had the social graces to blush. "I hope you don't mind?"

"That you stole my shirt? No, it's ok," Nick said, and gave her a little smirk.

Judy sighed and hung her head in mock-shame. The image was ruined when she started giggling a few seconds later. Nick's smirk grew into a genuine grin, and he started to crack up himself. For a minute or it was all they could do to laugh themselves silly - then Nick's comforter-kilt came undone and fell to the floor. Wiping tears from her eyes, Judy gave the naked fox an unabashedly thorough looking over, a pleased and slightly smoldering look in her eyes. "Good morning, Mr. fox," she said.

Nick picked up the blanket with a grin, bunched it under his arm, and said, "Let me get cleaned up and I can go get the car. 45 minutes tops. There should be some veggie stuff for breakfast around here if you want some." He made to leave the room, but paused at the doorway to turn and say, "You know, you're pretty damn cute yourself, the morning after."

She couldn't even bring herself to be annoyed at him as his tail swished out of sight beyond the doorway.

* * *

{The Strokes - Someday}

Nick was part way through scrubbing himself down, humming a song, when the shower curtain was ripped open and he froze in shock, blinking, covered in suds, one footpaw off the ground. Judy stood on the other side, a sly expression on her face. It flickered to trepidation and then a nervous smile before she stripped off her borrowed t-shirt:

"Uh. Can I help you?" Nick asked, watching Judy hop on one footpaw as she pulled off her panties.

"Hey, I can save some time if I'm already cleaned up before I stop at home, right? Do you have any not-male-smelling soap?" Judy asked, climbing into the tub next to Nick.

"That stuff is unscented," Nick said, pointing at a bottle in the rack hanging from the shower gooseneck. Judy slid around him and into the water stream, which plastered down her short fur. The shampoo was just out of her reach, so Judy took a careful grip of the curtain, and stretched out a bit further - just in time for Nick to place it in her hands. Judy hugged the bottle and turned to look at Nick, who was working soap through his tail fur.

"Thanks, Nick," she said, hugging the bottle to her chest.

"Any time."

Judy poured some shampoo into her paw and set the bottle on the shower floor. While she worked the soap into her fur, she observed Nick's slightly tense body language.

"Have you never shared a shower with another mammal?" She asked.

"...No. Well, maybe at like a public pool or something." He paused. "Have you?"

"With my littermates when we were kits."

"But not-"

"And in high school when my friends and I all went skinny dipping in the swimming hole."

"...But not like this."

"No. Not with a boyfriend. Or a fox."

Nick fell silent, moving under the water to rinse out. Judy looked up at him, still soaping up.

"Nick… is this making you nervous?"

"It isn't!"

" _Something_ is. Is it me?" She asked, looking worried.

"No! It's not you. It's just- I, with you, and, um..."

Judy reached out to him, and pulled her body up against his in a hug under the shower stream. She laid her head against his chest and scratched her claws into his wet fur. Nick blinked down at her, his arms held away from his body.

"It's just me, Nick. Just Judy."

After a moment, Nick unfroze with a sigh and hugged her back.

"I'm glad you're here, Carrots."

They stood that way for a minute, under the cascading warm water.

"I'm feeling a but," Judy almost mumbled into Nick's soaked chest fur.

"What was that?"

"I'm waiting for the 'but,' Nick."

He leaned back and looked down at the rabbit against his chest.

"No buts!"

"Liar."

"I swear! I'm glad you're here. It's the new idea of what… 'us' is that's…"

"Confusing?"

"More like totally undefined."

"So? Isn't fox dating kind of about figuring out that stuff on the way?"

"I… guess you could look at it that way."

"...but you don't."

Nick pulled gently away from Judy, and leaned down to turn off the water. He caught Judy's eyes and tilted his head slightly at the faucet handles before grabbing them. She nodded at him, so Nick shut the shower off and pulled open the curtain.

"Well, no. Um. I mean, maybe if I had gone into a relationship… look. This is the first time in my adult life I've been in a stable enough position to offer somemammal more than a tod who doesn't know whether or not he'll be destitute in a month, let alone one who could create something meaningful with them."

Nick stepped out of the shower and rooted through a small cubby of shelves until he produced a couple of towels. He pawed one to Judy.

"Seems to me you did pretty well for yourself, Slick, given the connections, car, and apartment..." she said, giving herself a brief drying and then stepping into the "Fur-nado 5000" in the corner of the bathroom, which spooled up with a jet-engine like whine.

Nick shouted over it: "Maybe in the end I did, but that's not what I meant anyway. You know I pride myself on having all the information ahead of time, Carrots, so I can keep my head organized. Sometimes just enough to improvise off of, but something, at least. And before, I knew those relationships weren't supposed to last - they were just pretty vixens crushing on a bad boy, and me happy to oblige them… and I always told them that: 'this is for right now, don't make plans on me.' Because I had a plan already, and it was to leave before anyone could get hurt. This… I don't know anything."

The volume of Nick's voice dropped as the fur drying unit cycled down. Judy stepped out, and took back her towel to smooth her fur into place.

"So, what you're saying is that: you're nervous because you want something meaningful and long term with me, and you've never wanted that before, so you don't have any plan to follow or knowledge to rely on and it makes you feel lost and scared?"

Nick opened his jaws to respond, a digit raised, but then froze for a moment. He blinked, shut his mouth and dropped his paw, and turned to step into the Fur-nado, and said with a funny expression on his muzzle, "That's exactly right, actually."

Judy smiled at him, but more to herself, as he shook his fur out in the dryer. After it spooled down, Nick stepped out.

"That's so sweet, Nick. Thank you."

"How could I want anything less with such an incredible doe?" He asked, and leaned down to plant a kiss on her lips. She kissed him back, eagerly. After a few seconds, though, they simultaneously became almost painfully aware of their shared nudity - which instantly shifted from utilitarian to something much more intimate. Their eyes met and widened considerably and they broke off the kiss.

"I think I should-"

"Maybe we just-"

"Um, I think…"

"Uh huh."

"Yup."

They looked down at their foot paws, and simultaneously heaved sighs. Nick glanced up from under his brow at Judy, a small smile creeping up his muzzle. Judy snickered and giggled, bringing a paw up to her mouth, eyes mirthful. Nick huffed out a canine snort, and darted out of the bathroom, Judy's eyes following all the while.

* * *

The brief stop at Judy's apartment didn't delay their morning terribly long - she was in and out within five minutes, coming back to Nick's waiting car with his t-shirt in paw, and wearing a fresh bodysuit.

They made it to the bullpen with barely a moment to spare, clambering up onto their shared chair right in front of the Chief's podium just as Higgins called the room to attention and the Chief burst in. Only a few mammals pounded on the tables in front of them; there just wasn't as much enthusiasm midweek as there was after a weekend off.

"Two items today: first, the annual Policemammal's Ball is coming up in July. Attendance for officers below sergeant rank isn't mandatory-"

"Thank god! I know _I_ don't need to see a Cape buffalo try to dance _again_ ," Nick interjected.

A vindictive smile settled into place on Chief Bogo's face as the assembled officers snickered at Nick's joke.

"...as I was saying, isn't mandatory except for those officers who have been specifically requested by council mammals or the mayor. As you, Officer Wilde, and your partner, have been."

Nick blanched at the news, groaned, and plunked his head against the table, to louder laughter around the bullpen.

Looking inordinately pleased with himself, the Chief continued: "Second, any officers who were involved in that speciest gang scuffle on Monday need to submit a copy of their reports to Captain Owuru at Precinct 4 because, thankfully, it's his case, not mine. Anything further will go through him."

"Assignments! Krumpanski, Johnson, Higgins: you're on detachment to Savannah Square GIU." The trio of officers stood and took a file from the Chief as they exited.

"Grizzoli, Andersen: Tundratown SWAT - apparently they're raiding the Snow Powder sales ring you helped uncover, and they requested you join them for the honor." The polar bear partners stood and left out the back door, tapping fisted paws as they exited.

"Hopps, Wilde: we've had a recent series of reports about attempted theft by trick in the Gnu York neighborhood subways. Take some time out of patrol today to look into that. Everyone else, standard patrols. Don't make me any extra paperwork."

Nick gave Judy a loaded glance and whispered under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear, "Gee I wonder why we got _that_ assignment." Judy gave him a wry half-smile and bumped his ribs with her elbow. Nick took the folder Chief Bogo was holding out, and the pair headed out towards their cruiser.

* * *

"Big, speciest old bull," Nick said, looking into briefing folder, "giving the fox officer the con artist investigation."

"I'm sure it has _nothing_ to do with your particular insight and experience in the field, Slick."

Nick stuck his snout up in the air. "Yeah, and I'm the King of Baaaahrain," he said, but with a smile. His face fell as he looked down again. "Huh. That's interesting."

"What?"

"You know I know everyone. Or I did, anyway. I figured that in Gnu York it was going to be Weaselton running his goldbrick scheme with those fake DVDs."

"It's not?"

"There's no mention of him. The reports are all about an old fox tod."

Nick fell silent as he climbed into the passenger seat of their cruiser. He dug further into the file.

"Somemammal you know?"

"Maybe... But whoever it is, they're an old school con-mammal, that's for sure. I haven't heard of anyone running a fake conductor scam in _years_. Hell, I haven't used a paper ticket myself in forever. No wonder he got reported."

Suddenly, it occurred to Nick that he couldn't feel the sexual tension between Judy and him that had defined the past couple of days. His eyes widened as he looked into the distance through the windshield, and let out a surprised "Huh!" He heard a giggle from the driver's seat as they came to a stop at a traffic light. Then a small, blunt-clawed paw scratched where his jawline met his neck.

"I know. It's nice to be able to think straight," she said, as Nick let out a pleased groan. He was just beginning to purr when Judy put her paw back on the wheel and pulled away from the stop light.

"Aw," Nick said.

"Not on duty, Officer Wilde."

"No fun allowed at work?" he asked with a mischievous smile.

"No fun, no breaks."

"You started it!"

"Merely a temporary lapse in sanity, I assure you."

Nick barked out a laugh, and Judy joined him in a fit of giggles. Judy glanced over at Nick. 'This is nice. This feels just like it always did,' she thought. Of course, it was just then that her eyes drifted, spying his sharp white teeth, the moving muscles in his neck, his strong shoulders… suddenly memories of the pleasures from the night before flooded into her mind.

She whipped her head forward, feeling the slightest licking of heat in her core. 'So… not like it was. Not at all.'

Sensing Judy's change of mood as he laughed himself out, Nick looked over to her. She looked a little more tense then she had just a moment ago, her scent shifting as she exuded pheromones of a nervous mammal. He had a sudden urge to tuck his snout into the curve of her neck inside her collar, to give comfort to the bunny he cared for so deeply - which he pushed away easily. He suddenly understood the onset of her anxiety.

"Not just like normal, is it?"

"No, it's not."

"But it works?"

"Maybe. It did Monday, with that awful fight, even with how distracted we were."

"Well… maybe it's a new normal." Nick smiled. "I still don't want any other mammal sitting next to me."

Judy glanced over to him, and a sunny grin grew into place on her face. "Me neither, Slick."

Just then, a car in front of them blew a stop sign and made an illegal left turn. Sharing a glance, Nick flipped on the siren and lights, and Judy took off after them.

* * *

Lunch that day ended up being on the job. Apparently the motorists in Downtown Zootopia had collectively decided it was their day for moving violations. Nick would barely finish handing out a ticket when somemammal would go speeding by, or a fender bender occurred a block away and they had to go speeding off again. The pair of them hopscotched across Downtown in fits and starts between traffic stops - Nick had barely gotten a bite of lunch down when a pair of cars rocketed past the parked cruiser, and they had to go 10-8 and tear after them.

With the insanity of Zootopian motorists that day, they didn't get a chance to head south to Gnu York in Savannah Central until about 4pm. At Nick's insistence of not spooking their quarry, Judy parked the cruiser about a block away from the subway entrance. They headed down into the bowels of the city through the Veldtstreet station to see if they could scare up a lead.

"Why the Anamalia Line?" Judy asked. Nick had practically insisted on it while they were parking the cruiser.

"It passes through Savannah Central Station, and is also the closest to the southern tourist attractions."

"So?"

"He'll be looking for tourists. Trust me."

Judy sighed. "Because they're less likely to know the rules, and easier marks?"

Nick nodded at her. "Yup. This would be easier if we were plainclothes… he'll probably run if he sees uniforms."

"Maybe we'll get lucky."

"I don't get lucky."

"Don't say that!"

"Judy, meeting _you_ is pretty much the only good luck I've had in 25 years… Granted, that's some pretty amazing luck, but I think it used my supply up."

She blushed, and smiled. "Well, maybe you'll get something from a couple of rabbit feet working with you."

"Cripes, even _you guys_ believe that awful old superstition?"

"You should see my keychain."

Nick eyed her. "I have. It's a carrot."

Judy burst out laughing. Nick gave her a slightly confused smile, and waited for her to laugh herself out.

"Do you- do you think we should question the Transit workers?" she asked.

"Nahhh… we just have to let them know we're here on work. Maybe they can get us on the trains for free?"

"Always looking for the angle. I thought you outgrew that?"

"You can take the fox out of the hustle, but you can't take the hustle out of the fox."

Judy bapped him with her paw. "Lets see who's home," she said, and knocked on the 'ZTA Employees Only' door next to the ZTA pass and ticket machines. A jackrabbit buck in an orange safety vest and wearing a yellow helmet opened the door after a few seconds. Judy could see a similarly dressed prairie dog doe behind him, sitting at a table, and a stairwell headed further underground behind her.

"Can I help you, Officers?" the jackrabbit asked.

Judy smiled. "Judy Hopps, ZPD. We're conducting some investigatory work on the Anamalia line, just wanted to let you know."

"...Do you need to get out on the tracks? We have to schedule that way in advance, you know."

"No, nothing like that, sir."

"Alright then. Thank you for letting us know, I guess."

As the jackrabbit began to close the door, Nick spoke up: "Do you think you could get us onto the station platform?"

The jackrabbit paused, and looked back to the prairie dog, his body language indicating the smaller mammal was his superior. "No problem," she said. "Follow me."

Nick slipped into the door from behind Judy, and she followed him in. The room behind the door had rows of coat hooks filled with orange jackets, tools, repair equipment, and more safety gear than you could shake a stick at. The prairie dog led them around a scarred table with mugs and open takeout containers on it, and partway down the back stair to an unmarked steel door.

"This is the platform," the prairie dog said. "Further down is track access - but _do not_ _even think about_ going that way without a ZTA Engineer."

"I understand," Nick said. "I grew up in Zootopia - I remember all the scary stories we'd tell about mammals touching the third rail."

The prairie dog sighed. "It's the smell that's the worst part, really. There usually isn't much left to clean up - but the smell, it lingers."

Judy gulped, a distressed expression on her muzzle. "Ok well let's get moving, shall we? Thank you, Ms…" she trailed off, gesturing to the big rodent in front of her.

"Abigail. Abigail Burowning."

"Ms. Burowning. Thank you for your assistance." Judy pushed nick at the door, which thankfully opened out into the platform rather than into the stairwell.

"If you need anything else," Abigail said, "I'm on extension 832 in the ZTA phone system."

"Thank you," Nick said.

Abigail Burowning, the prairie dog ZTA Engineer, nodded to them as the door swung closed. Nick and Judy found themselves on the station platform off to the side of a big crowd of commuters.

"How did you want to play this?" Judy asked.

"One train at a time, moving so we're always at opposite ends of a car. Just keep an eye out for a fox in a ZTA uniform shaking down passengers."

"So, basic pincer?"

Nick nodded. "It's not like he really has anywhere else to go. I never liked running anything that leaves you this trapped if things go sour, back in the day."

"So… you've done this before?"

"No, not me. I knew a couple of mammals who did, though. I never liked hustles this mean - or dishonest - or difficult to run from. You needed more confidence than I had to try it. Course, it's moot now that we all have ZTA cards."

Judy nodded to Nick, a vague stirring of relief in her mind. She moved to stand at the furthest down-line section of the platform, waiting for the next train. Nick was about half a car-length further up, so they could board through separate doors and maintain spacing.

The first train yielded nothing. They paced down the train from carriage to carriage, carefully watching for a mammal fitting the description in the file, but came up empty. They changed trains at the third station stop, but again, found nothing.

On the third train they found their mammal.

Judy didn't give the elderly tod a second glance in the crowded subway car when she first passed by - he was wearing a worn blue jacket and facing away from her. A second later, though, her sensitive ears picked up his conversation. She froze and pivoted her ears toward him, listening in:

"...and I don't want to make a scene for you, ma'am, but I can't have you onboard without proof of fare."

"I didn't even see where to get a ticket when I paid!"

"Well, happily, I can take care of that for you - 7.50 for you and the little ones, and the $50 penalty for no proof. I'll give you a receipt and everything."

Judy decided she'd heard enough to establish probable cause as the female stammered. She turned to get a closer look at the elderly tod, and discovered he'd cornered a rabbit and two kits who looked very nervous, and like they'd just fallen off a truck in Podunk.

Judy caught Nick's eye, and he nodded in confirmation, moving to block the aisle opposite of Judy. She stepped up behind the vulpine conmammal.

{Silversun Pickups - Well Thought Out Twinkles}

"Excuse me, sir. ZPD. Can I have a-"

He bolted, right past Judy and away from Nick.

"Hey! HEY! Freeze!"

Shoving commuting mammals out of the way, the tod made for the carriage exit - but Judy's size and speed were a tremendous advantage in the crowded rail car. She caught up to him inside of 5 steps, and tried for a simple trip - kicking the lifting paw foot behind the stationary one - but got only a flick of his tail instead. He made it to the door and heaved it open, darting through just out of Judy's reach and across the howling, noisy gap to the next car. He slipped through the door as Judy stepped over the small gap between the shaking platforms, and Nick slid through the door behind her.

Judy reached the next carriage and started yanking on the handle - then a big russet paw surrounded hers and shoved the sliding door open.

"Stop! Police!" She shouted into the emptier carriage, causing heads to whip towards her. Not that it gave the running tod even a little pause. At this point Judy could hear his strained breaths, though, and she and Nick took off after him. With split second timing Judy darted around a surprised wolf and sprung up and off of a grab pole, rocketing into the back of her quarry. With a loud "Oomph!" the tod went down to the floor, the smaller mammals' velocity making for an effective tackle despite her small frame. Crouched on his back, Judy grappled his left arm into an elbow lock just before he started started struggling against her, growling, teeth flashing.

Charging behind her, Nick saw the flashes of yellowed teeth as the fallen tod thrashed: an inferno of possessiveness, territorial instincts, and a need to protect Judy burst into life in his chest. He came slamming down onto the foxes right side, teeth bared, growling in challenge, and got the tod's head locked down, wrenching on his neck. After just a moment of multiple joints straining, the twice-grappled tod whimpered and tapped his forepaw against Judy's arm in submission.

"Surrender?" She asked him. The tod nodded, his snout rubbing on the floor of the car.

She risked a quick glance at Nick, whose teeth were bared, a growl bubbling in his throat; "Cuffs, Nick."

His eyes pivoted to her - there was a rush of relief in them, then he shifted his weight and brought out his pawcuffs to cuff the tod's paws together. Together, Nick and Judy lifted him up and set him on a subway seat. He landed with a wheezy grunt. As soon as Nick saw his face, his expression turned to troubled recognition.

"Ah hell. Theo?"

Judy looked up at Nick, concern in her eyes.

The tod - Theo, apparently - smiled sadly. His muzzle was streaked grey, contrasting with his dark red fur and amber eyes. He looked old, grizzled - and tired. Tired, a little sad, and resigned.

"Nicky. You got big. And switched teams."

"It's been a long time. Things change," Nick responded. 'God does he look beaten down. And old,' he thought.

"You know him?" Judy asked Nick.

"Of course he does," Theo said, "The little bastard tried rolling _me_ at 12 years old - he's lucky I thought he'd be a better protege than an example of why you don't play a player. Theodore Ainsworth Dodger."

Judy folded her arms, stern disapproval written on her muzzle.

"You must be Officer Hopps," the old conmammal said. Glancing at Judy's expression, he followed up saying, "Don't act all surprised, now, sweet cheeks. We do have TV in jail."

Nick growled at Theodore's use of the pet name. Theodore looked up at the younger tod, a shrewd look in his eye. After a moment, his snout lolled open in a canine grin, and he winked at Nick. "So that's how it is, huh?"

Nick sighed and hung his head, and Theo's grin grew even bigger. Judy didn;t know what to make of the exchange.

"When did you get out, Theo?" Nick asked, looking back at him.

"Not quite… hmm, what was it? About 2 weeks ago."

"Two weeks was all it took? After 15 years away?"

"I was getting hungry, Nicky, and I stayed that way."

"Let me guess. Fake Conductor didn't fool anyone."

"Not a one. They all seem so paranoid, now."

Nick sighed and dropped his face to his right paw. Judy decided that stressing Nick out - and the conversation - had gone on long enough.

"That's enough, Mr. Dodger. You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?"

Theodore, who had been at least cooperative once he was cuffed, frowned in anger and frustration: "Yeah, yeah. I get it."

"Where did you get that jacket?" Judy asked, pointing at the ZTA logo on the front of it. Theodore gave her a look that clearly said 'How stupid do you think I am?' and said nothing.

Nick put a paw on Theodore's upper arm, and Judy turned to stand in front of him, waiting for the train to return to the Veldstreet Station where they'd left their cruiser. Thankfully, the combination of trains they'd jumped had left them only a couple of stops away, so the awkward, silent trio didn't have to wait long.

Once they got onto the station platform Theodore made a half-hearted attempt to bolt, shifting his weight and trying to pull his arm out of Nick's grasp. Judy, however, heard the movement, even through the crowd, and cut off the feeble escape attempt, stepping into his chest with her shoulder.

"Ok, ok, I get it. Sorry. You know how it is," Theodore said to her. Judy gave him her grumpiest scowl, and turned to keep walking out of the station, her ears pivoted towards Nick and their arrestee.

They got back up to street level and walked the block to the cruiser. Judy unlocked the car and opened the back door, and Nick guided Theodore into the rear passenger compartment and closed the door behind him. He sighed, and turned to Judy.

"Are you ok, Nick?"

He took a few seconds to respond: "...Yeah. I think I am."

Judy gave him a sad little smile, and turned to walk around the cruiser.

"...Aren't you going to radio this in?" Nick asked her, suddenly realizing she'd gone against code to not do it already.

Judy stopped and turned to face him. "Do you want me to?" She asked.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Nick spread his paws palms out in a swift motion. "I-I… I don't know!" He sighed again, tension evident in the set of his shoulders. "That's our job. He's a criminal - a lifer, at that, without much remorse. But I still feel like I owe him something, for what he did for me when I was a kid."

"You owe some conmammal who dragged you deeper into crime?"

"I… would have been in jail - or dead - without him at least pointing me in the… 'right' direction. Theo kept a load of trouble from hitting me when I was too young and brash to understand the consequences of getting it wrong."

"So? It sounds like he got caught and left you hard up."

"Judy… you don't…" he trailed off. "That was going to be _me_ in there!" Nick said, pointing emphatically at the back seat of the cruiser. "That's the path _I_ was on. I look at him and I see me, 30 years down the line. That's where I was going - beaten down, trapped going in circles, seeing no way out. But _you_ happened to me instead."

Nick bowed his head. His throat felt thick. "That's where I was supposed to be. The only reason I'm not is _you_ , Judy. You saved me."

Judy felt her heart twist. Her ears fell back, her nose wiggling. She wanted to jump up and cuddle him, comfort him, remind him he was better than he felt in the moment.

"Thank you, Judy."

"You deserved it, Nick."

"Nah, I didn't. But at least I can try and make up the lost ground, huh?" He smiled wanly down at her, paws itching to grab her up into a hug. She smiled back, like sun breaking through clouds.

Nick heaved another big sigh, looking up at the cruiser. "Anyway, I thought maybe Theo could use somemammal believing in him, too, you know? Not just a trip back to the slammer."

"Uh-huh."

"Judy… you didn't…"

"What did you have in mind, Slick?"

Nick was speechless for a moment.

"C'mon, Nick. If there's anything I learned from you - even a year ago - it's that life, and the rules, aren't always fair. That just means you have to work extra hard to make it that way. So…?"

"Right. Uh, I'll have to call him and make sure, but Finnick went straight with the Pawpsicle Parlor. Maybe he could do something for him."

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

Nick dug out his phone and dialed up the fennec.

* * *

"So. The Artful Dodger just can't keep out of trouble, huh?" Finnick asked Theodore, standing in the middle of the temporarily closed Pawpsicle Parlor, arms crossed, stance wide. "And now he ends up coming to _my_ establishment."

Theodore looked sidelong at Nick in confusion. "What are we doing here?" he asked.

In response, Nick released his arm and stepped behind him, unlocking the paw cuffs on his wrists. "Don't make me regret this, Theo."

"You're working for me now, Dodger. The magnanimous Officers Wilde and Hopps have decided you deserve a fair shake, and I'm going to be the one to give it to you. You work here. You get a room upstairs, and a wage. You listen to me. You keep your head down. You don't make trouble. Play nice, and these fine officers don't have to come calling - _after_ I'm finished with you."

Theo looked back at Judy and Nick, rubbing the fur on his wrists, confusion evident in his expression. "You're… you're letting me go?"

"Not really. Think of it as a very personal, very intolerant probation. One strike and you're out. Don't strike out," Nick said.

"This is it, Mr. Dodger," Judy said. "This the proverbial - and real - last chance. Nick is going out on limb for you. If we hear of anything - _anything_ about you putting a single claw out of line, you're done. Make good on what you've been given."

"I… why?"

"One time, years ago, you had mercy on a kit who didn't deserve it, and tried to bring him up in the world. Here's your return on the favor."

Finnick, impatient to open up the store again, hooked a thumb towards a doorway to the back of shop: "Go get cleaned up. We've got customers to help."

"You've got a chance, Mr. Dodger. Take it and don't mess it up," Judy said, and stepped out of the shop. Nick nodded to Finnick, who flipped his hand at him in a 'buzz off' gesture. Nick followed Judy out of the store.

Nick climbed into the passenger seat of the cruiser just outside and joined Judy in the front seat of the cruiser. "Do you think we did the right thing?" Nick asked.

"Do you?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I'm just nervous about it."

"Finnick can handle him, can't he? And he'll call us if things go sour?"

"He will. I'm just nervous about what we can put in our reports, or tell the Chief."

"Officer Discretion. All he could be put away for is attempted petty theft by trick. And he's in a very tightly watched environment with a reliable 'informant.' He's not going anywhere - and if he does, you'll be there to catch him. Write the truth - that you felt he was desperate and deserved to be given a chance in the right direction. The Chief will understand."

"Thanks, Judy" he said, and leaned across the car and pulled her into a hug. She gave a squeak of happiness and burrowed her muzzle into his neck fur, breathing in his scent. Nick turned his head and kissed her between the ears. Judy pulled her head back and looked up, meeting his lips, and they lazily, relaxedly kissed, taking comfort in each other's presence. After a few scant seconds, though, Nick cleared his throat and pulled away. Judy whimpered at the absence of his lips and tongue on hers.

"Still on the job," he said. Judy sighed and nodded, and started the cruiser to head back to Precinct One.

* * *

"The precinct," said Nick to himself, "is a fine and wonderful place, but none, I think, do there prefer to toil."

He shook his head in bemusement at his mangling of an old poem, and turned back to his laptop, filling out his share of the reports for the day on his couch at home. It'd been close to 8pm when he'd left the precinct - _after_ spending more than an hour agonizing over what he put into Theo's report. Of course Chief Bogo (who apparently never left the damn place) hadn't batted an eye when Nick personally handed the report to him, responding with: "Hopps agreed with and vouches for your decision. Where would we be if I couldn't trust the judgement of my own officers?" Judy had still been at her desk, plugging away at the other half of their reports, when Nick headed home. He'd given her a wave, a 'see you tomorrow,' and after a lot of head swiveling looking for co-workers, a rather chaste kiss on the cheek.

Of course, now he was missing her and wishing he'd stayed, no matter how comfortable his couch was.

It was getting close to 10pm - time to turn in, though his body resented it - when there was a knock at his door. There was really only one mammal who would be trying to come by this late and without any notice. Nick felt a thrill in his stomach as he approached the door.

Sure enough, Judy was standing outside, looking bashful. She was dressed casually and had a duffel bag over her shoulder, her ears standing tall and her nose oddly still. She gave him a nervous smile. Nick folded his arms and leaned against his doorway, giving her a small smile and a questioning raised eyebrow.

"So, um… I couldn't sleep," she said, the inside of her ears growing pinker by the second, "it felt like you were, uh… missing next to me, I guess." She paused, digits twining and fidgeting, then said in a rush: "And I stewed on it for a little while but then I just said 'this is stupid, he's just across town' and so here I am."

She looked so embarrassed to Nick. After just a few seconds of silence, Judy said: "...Or this was really presumptuous of me and, hahaha, I can just go h-ummmph." Nick swooped in and cut her off, tilting her jaw up and capturing her lips with his.

They kissed for a good 30 seconds, until Judy pulled away, a little out of breath. "Oh."

"Of course I want to spend the night with you," Nick said. "Please come in."

{The Harp Consort - Bridget Cruise}

Nick watched her as she stepped by him, all curved hips, perky tail, and a hesitancy in her gait that spoke to a remaining uncertainty. In that moment, she was irresistible. He closed the door, bolted it, and swept after her.

Judy made it about 5 feet into the apartment before Nick scooped her up from behind. Her trained-into-reflex combat response made her to briefly stiffen and move to break free, but his scent and his lips meeting hers overrode her initial reaction, and she melted in his arms instead.

Judy reached her paws up to stroke his muzzle as the kiss deepened. His mouth lifted from hers, his tongue stretching to tease her lips, and his snout dipped lower, to kiss, lick, and nibble at her neck. Judy moaned out her pleasure; from his ministrations, his presence, the feeling of security in his arms. As he nipped and kissed down the curve of her neck to her graceful collarbones, she started unbuttoning his shirt, needing to feel his fur and skin against hers.

Nick could scent her growing excitement; a need for release that he could almost feel and sought to quench. He felt himself starting to respond to her. He reached lower with his mouth, taking her shoulder and neck in his jaws and biting down gently. Judy moaned, almost mewling in ecstasy, and her blunt-nailed paws, having gotten past his shirt, dug into the fur and skin below in response.

After a few seconds, he released her and leaned back, looking down at Judy. She was panting, flushed, eyes dilated, and her scent was strong in his nose. She reached up and took his muzzle in her paws again, cradling his face like a precious treasure. He didn't deserve to be looked at like that, he knew, but he loved it anyway.

She saw the tenderness in his eyes, the lust and the desire and the uncertainty, the protectiveness and the eagerness to please her. His scent swirled around her, calming and exciting her in equal measure. He was handsome and strong and wanted her, she was sure.

Looking into each other's eyes there was a sensation of tumbling, of falling into each other.

"Wow," she said.

"Yeah. Wow."

"Can we…"

Judy giggled as Nick dashed into his bedroom in answer. He moved next to the bed, kicked the covers open, and gently laid her down. As his arms pulled out from under her, Judy cocked her hips, rubbing her thighs together, and pulled an ear over an eye, playing with it. She flashed Nick a coquettish grin as he finished pulling off his shirt. He drank the sight of her in, his hackles raising further, his eyes full of hunger. She leaned forward, reaching for his belt line, but Nick smiled and shook his head, pushing her back onto the bed with a paw.

"Please," he said, "let me."

He reached for the hem of her shirt, hooking his digits under it. Judy lifted her arms and her torso slightly, and Nick pulled her shirt up, slowly, sensually, dragging his claws gently through her velvety grey and white patterned fur, his mouth dotting kisses and licks as he moved up her torso. Judy shivered at the sensations. He leaned in and kissed her lips as the shirt came over her head and past her ears, and she seized him by the ears, pulling him against her lips.

Judy felt him running a paw pad between her waistband and her fur as they kissed, gently stroking her. Then it moved lower under her clothes, his paw cupping her right hip, a pad and claw tip tracing the crease where her thigh met her hips. Nick broke the kiss and started crawling further down the bed. Judy held still the paws on his head; her blunt claws raked over his ears and down his snout as he moved. Nick gave her a shivery grin at the sensation. Crouching over her legs, Nick hooked both paws into the waistband of Judy's pants and underwear, carefully extracted her tail, and repeated the slow, claw-trailing removal of clothing down her legs. With her bottoms off he almost immediately moved to service her as he had the night before, but Judy sat up and pushed his head away, firmly.

"Don't. Thank you, but I want to take care of _you_ tonight," she said, and moved to undo his belt. Nick let her work, watching with trepidation, and she soon had his pants unbuttoned. Nick stood and took them off. When he moved back to the bed, Judy took his paw and pulled him down to lie on his back.

Judy, sitting next to him on bed, looked over his reclining form. His excitement was obvious: raised hackles; fast, panting breath; and more visibly between his legs. Judy leaned over him, dipping her muzzle in to kiss him on the lips. After a moment she reached down and took him in paw. Nick gasped and then whimpered, a nervous, almost scared sound. Judy broke the kiss and asked sweetly: "What is it, Nick?"

He started to answer, but Judy hadn't stopped working her paw, and he interrupted himself with a sudden intake of breath. She felt him shiver against her. Judy ceased her motion to let him answer.

He whined, then said in bare whisper, "...I'm scared."

"Of what, handsome fox?" She tightened her grip slightly. "This?" Nick nodded quickly in response.

Judy smiled down at him, eyes ablaze in desire, and asked "Didn't any of the vixens you dated before take care of you?" Hesitantly, Nick nodded again.

Judy leaned in and kissed him again. "Then don't worry. Relax and enjoy yourself," she said, and began moving her paw. Nick's eyes closed for a moment as he gasped and panted. Enjoying his response to her ministrations, Judy leaned lower, examining him more closely. He really was going to be rather too big for her, although the shape made things less intimidating. She looked up at Nick and gave him a little smirk before lapping at him.

Nick immediately responded, letting out an abrupt whine as his muscles tensed, then relaxed. He started to vocalize slightly on his exhales. Though he was feeling foggy with pleasure from Judy's efforts, he reached between Judy's legs with a paw, seeking to reciprocate. She felt his paw pad apply pressure to her, and gave a moaning shudder, but after only a few seconds, moved out of his reach. She kept her grip on him, smiled and shook her head, and lay down on his legs. As she put her mouth and paws back to work in her new position, she could much more closely feel Nick's shudders and muscle tension. After a moment, though, he lifted a thigh between hers and put pressure against her again. She rolled her eyes, but couldn't keep herself from pushing back, building to her own release.

It took a little time, but eventually Nick's vocalizations and shudders built to a crescendo. He grabbed her ears, one in each paw - not pulling, just holding them. She felt part of him start to swell - surprisingly large, even though she was expecting it - which, combined with his paws on her sensitive ears and the pressure against her, triggered her own unexpected release. She shook against and moaned around him - he gave a harsh gasp as his body went shiveringly, whipcord-tense: she had brought him to his fall. Nick rode the pleasure out, Judy pulling her ears from his grasp at one point, but was brought rather quickly back to reality as she started laughing.

He looked down the bed to find her... rather out-of-sorts, but still laughing.

"Ah…" he said.

"There's just… so much!" she said, and started giggling. She looked down at him, still in one paw, and quirked an eyebrow.

"Right… That's, uh, normal. Sort of… enforced cuddle time, if this was… arranged a little differently." Judy smiled at him, and crawled off the paw-foot of the bed.

"Let me go clean up," she said, and left for the bathroom. Nick nodded, a little embarrassed, and got a towel out of his closet to clean up himself.

Nick lay in bed on his side when Judy returned about five minutes later. She slid under the covers behind him, slightly awkwardly being the 'big spoon', and kissed the back of his head.

"Hey," she said.

"Yeah?"

"You've got nothing to be embarrassed about, Nick."

"Don't I?"

"No, you don't."

Nick rolled over to face Judy. "You must be joking."

"I'm really not! Actually… I kind of liked it."

"What, seriously?"

Judy shivered against him slightly. "Yeah. I… um. It made me wonder what it would feel like if we, you know…"

Nick gave a nervous laugh.

"Well, it made a little more eager to find that out, anyway."

"Judy…"

"I know, I know. Don't worry about it. There's no pressure. Just… no hesitation from me anymore."

Nick nodded in understanding. "Ok. Good night, Judy."

Judy tilted her muzzle up and gave Nick a quick kiss, breathing his scent in.

"Good night, Nick. Sweet dreams."

He curled his arms tighter around her, pulling her close. Her presence, her scent; it felt right. She filled his world.

She nuzzled into his neck fur, deeply breathing him in. Really there was nowhere else - no _one_ else - she could contemplate that she'd prefer. It was their own perfect little corner of the universe, and for now nothing outside it mattered.

Wrapped in each other's arms, drinking in each other's scents, they quickly succumbed to sleep, ever deepening the safe harbor they brought out of the undercurrents in each other.

* * *

A/N - Almost 3 months, it's been, since I had something to show everyone. This is an extra long chapter, because there was a lot to get done in it, and maybe that helps a little - but I know, never really enough. I can promise all my readers, though, that this fic is _not_ dead - it just might take longer to complete than anyone, including me, wants it to.

Thanks to Fairlane302, my beta reader, for his advice, super speedy editing work, and patience. You're the best, dude.

FYI Bridget Cruise is an old Irish love song by Turlough O'Carolan. It's usually played as an instrumental, but does have lyrics - which are extremely tender hearted and sweet.

Bye until next time... In like a year and a half… or longer!

(Yes you can win fake internet points if you can pick out easter egg references in the text. I'll even note your screen name if you comment and get one right! Here's one for you: a few chapters back I badly quoted The Emperor's New Groove.)


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